What Do We Do with our Hope at Christmas? (1 Peter 3) | 12/14/2025

If you're watching online, we want to greet you.

And I say thanks for joining us, whether it's 1113 right now on a

Sunday morning or sometime in the near future.

And we want to invite you to come be with us in person.

This is your invitation. If you've been waiting for one,

you are invited. Come find us at 115 E Main

Street, right in the old historic part of downtown.

Gathered. We'll see you again soon.

Our services are at 9:00 and 10:00, 30.

I must mention that the Sunday in between Christmas, Christmas

and New Year's, we will only have one service.

We're going to give our volunteers kind of a light

weekend, so like Sunday. So that will be Sunday the 28th,

I believe it is. So that date, look for only one

service at 10 AM. Can you say 10:00 AM?

Thank you very much. Alright, if you have your

Bibles, please take and turn quite to the back of your New

Testament to the book of first Peter, which is after Hebrews

and James, if you could find those, and before Revelation and

the letters from John, first, second and third John.

So quite to the back, depending on how many notes and maps and

the likes that you have at the back of your Bible.

So first Peter, chapter 3, and I'm going to read to you from

1 Peter 3 · chapter mention

verse 15. And this is the apostle Peter

that was a disciple of Jesus. You might remember he walked on

water and sunk, but he did walk for a little while and he denied

knowing Jesus. Remember the story of the

passion of Christ, the Easter story.

He denies even knowing Jesus, even though he'd been one of his

followers and he becomes really great early church leader that

writes a letter and his letter goes to followers of Jesus that

are in the midst of suffering and challenges and and and he

writes to them. And this is what he says in

first Peter 3, starting in verse 15.

He says, but in your hearts honor Christ.

The Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to

anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.

Yet do it with the gentleness and respect.

Peter is coaching them to be ready to give a defense for the

hope that they have in Christ. So this morning and this

Christmas season, I want to talk to you about what do we do with

our hope at Christmas? What do we do with the hope that

we find in Christ in the Christmas season?

Let me pray for us, God. We have come to worship you.

We're made for it. We are made to connect with you,

to have fellowship with you, to have Konya, to have communion

with you. And we're made to have a

relationship with you. And we're made to abound in hope

and particularly this Christmas season, I pray God that you'll

speak to us and direct us. Show us what hope should look

like in the life of a believer. What do we do with the hope that

has been given to us by you? Speak to us.

We pray our hearts are open, we're ready.

And Jesus name and everyone said Amen and Amen.

The last couple years I keep going back to the theme that has

been the theme for our church and that is just a Christmas on

Main Street. Come to North Life in December

and we're going to celebrate Christmas on Main Street.

I love telling people that are friends of mine from around the

country that our church is at the corner of Main and Elm

Street. It doesn't get any more

Americana than the corner of Main and Elm in this little old

downtown area in Gate. I just love that our church sits

where it sits and that has the sense of family that we have.

And so the last several years we sing these Christmas carols

together. We just sit and sing traditional

Christmas carols and we tried to just really do Christmas in like

a traditional way. So next week we're going to have

our kids pad our kids program, our kids pageant.

And it's always so sweet man. And we don't like obsessed to do

it like pros or anything. It's just our kids.

And there's something wonderful about being in a church where

you can just get your kids up and let them tell the Christmas

story. Right.

I must tell you that early on in my career, I remember like, I

call it my career. My, my serving in the church in

my like 1993 to 95 in my early 20s, I served at a church in the

Saint Louis area. I see they were out of notes

back there as Lee's trying to find some notes.

So Laurel, maybe you can make some copies in case some people

want to grab them on their way out.

So 199395 I'm this young, you know, worship leader and working

at this church called Church on the Rock in the Saint Louis

area. It was like 3000 people attended

this church. I'm 23 years old and, and back

then I would, I would direct like like a little orchestra and

a big choir that was in a singing Christmas tree.

You ever seen this people singing in a Christmas tree?

So it's like this big, like big wooden.

It looked like a tiered cake. Then you put all these it's

greenery in it, and you'd put like, I don't know, 80 or 100

people in this tree. And so I would wear a tuxedo and

I had a baton and I was directing the orchestra.

And I really had no idea what I was doing because I don't really

read music. I play music by ear, right?

So, but I was faking everybody out.

Tom. I see.

There was like, Can you imagine me as an orchestra director?

It's true, man. So I was faking everybody out.

I got a little book on conducting and Christmas was

complicated and so we had camels and donkeys and llamas and 100

voice choir and a little orchestra and I'm in a tuxedo.

And I remember having like an out of body experience and go, I

don't think I was supposed to be doing this with my life.

This does not feel like me, man. I wanted to be like a guitar

playing worship guy, right? So I end up going to our church

in Grand Rapids, MI And funny thing there is that when I went,

if you can imagine this, I went to this church.

I moved there under Pastor's sincere guy.

But after I moved there, he said to me, he said, Kurt, I don't

really like guitar. Can you lead worship without

guitar? Can you imagine me leading

worship without guitar? It's really weird.

Like I feel terribly awkward if I don't have a guitar on when

I'm singing. I am the biggest dork.

OK, just a geek. So I did it, though, and I would

lead worship for piano and I would do these Christmas

musicals. And I lived that life.

And I would try to produce where I was planted.

But then I got to go to another place.

And what I found is that I didn't want to do super

complicated Christmas season. I wanted it just to be simple

and I wanted to do Christmas carols and, and Christmas

services. But but me personally, me doing

the big, big, big production was just, it wasn't fulfilling to

me. So my point is that now as the

pastor of our church, I always want Christmas to kind of just

be simple. And I want us to have these

ideas of like what are the main ideas and what are the main

beautiful parts? Singing Christmas carols and

Christmas pageants and Christmas Eve services.

I love them so much, but I want to focus on just the simplicity

and this idea of like, we're just going to Christmas on Main

Street. Jace is not in the room.

She stepped out for a couple minutes so I could tell a story

on her. She if you watch this, Jace

loves her hallmarked movies because she grew up speaking

German as a Croatian immigrant. She grew up speaking Germany,

German and and Germany. So she she says she loves her

hallmarked, but she puts this bark like a KT on the end of it

because that's how they would have said it in her native

language, right? So for me, it's like coming to

church. And I'm not a big Hallmark fan,

but I do like the idea of simplicity, the kind of a

Hallmark vibe at Christmas time. So the message this morning,

what I wanted to feel like is I wanted just to be the simple

reminder of this hope that we get at Christmas time.

Because the peace and the promises that are fulfilled that

bring us the hope is a certainly important to lean into as we go

through the Christmas season. OK.

And so Christmas on Main Street, I wanted to just be simple.

And so I want to bring you just a simple message this morning

about the hope that we find in Christmas and what do we do with

it. OK, now, and if you have the

notes, what I've done is when I put for Peter 3:15, I put red.

You can see there's red. What do you call it?

dot, dot, dot, right. Where there's a dot, dot, dot at

the beginning, A dot, dot dot at the end.

Why did I do that? Because really first Peter 315

here is it's it's kind of a thought in between a much longer

sentence. Much of the New Testament, by

the way, is written in long sentences, right?

And so this is a long sentence with one idea.

And in the middle of this long discourse that Peter is writing,

he says, Oh yeah, be ready to give a defense for the hope that

you have one Translation says be instant in and out of season,

ready to give answer for the hope that you have.

OK, now I want to give you the context.

So in your notes and on the screens, we'll have first Peter

3/8 through 16. So I'm going to show you verse

15. We already read what is its

context? OK, So the dot dot dots are to

show you there's ideas before and ideas after.

So watch this Peter again, this disciple of Jesus, now a church

leader apostle is writing to followers of Jesus that are

experiencing suffering and tribulation and persecution and

some of their persecutions because of their faith in

Christ. And some of it is just the

perils of life, disappointments, death of a loved one, a dream

that's dashed and is never fulfilled.

All of these things lead to a fight against the hope that we

find in Jesus. So watch.

He's going to call me saying, hey, be ready to give an answer

for the hope you have. But watch how he builds up to

it. He says finally.

Whenever a pastor or a New Testament writer, whenever they

say finally, it makes it sound like they're about to end, but

often they're not. OK, so he's he's saying finally,

but he's only in chapter 3. So there's chapter 4 and chapter

5 to come. He gets more to say.

So he doesn't really end, but he starts it by tricking him,

saying finally, OK, He says, finally, all of you have unity

of mind. I want you to be in unity.

He says, and I want you to have sympathy, sympathy and brotherly

love and a tender heart and a humble mind.

This is Peter. He's a rock.

He's a fisherman. And yet he's saying to these

followers of Jesus, this is the posture that I want you to have

humbleness and sympathy and unity.

OK, So he's writing them and he says do not repay evil for evil,

reviling for reviling, but On the contrary, bless for to this

you were called that you may obtain a blessing.

So he's saying don't curse people when they when when they

curse you, he's saying return a blessing to them, right?

This is the posture of a follower of Jesus and those

hearing the letter again, they were under great persecution and

suffering for their faith. OK, now verse 10.

Watch what he does here. He's going to quote a Psalm.

He quotes Psalm 34. OK, so as Wade and I taught

through the Psalms this past fall, what was interesting is

seeing how often in the New Testament we see the New

Testament writers quoting the Psalms.

You wouldn't know it unless you looked in the footnotes of your

Bible. But he is quoting Psalm 34 and

he says from the Psalm says for whoever desires to love life and

see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips

from speaking deceit. He's going to encourage them.

Be ready to give reason for the hope that you have.

Be ready to speak about it. But here he's saying don't,

don't speak evil with your tongue and don't speak deceit

with your tongue. And then he says, let him turn

away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue

it, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears

are on the are are open to the prayer, but the face of the Lord

is against those who do evil. OK, so he's quoted from the

Psalm. Then he goes on verse 13.

All of this is going to build up to Peter saying, be ready to

give an offence for the hope that you have.

Verse 13 Now who is there to harm you if you were zealous for

what is good? But even if you should suffer

for righteousness sake, you'll be blessed.

Have No Fear of them nor be troubled.

That's all the build up to. Now we get to where we start.

But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord is holy.

And always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a

reason for the hope that is in you.

Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good

conscience so that when you are slandered, those who are vowed

your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.

So watch this is AI love this passage of Christmas time.

What should our posture be? Because you might find that you

might get into some discussions with people about the truth of

Christmas, the truth of Jesus, etcetera.

And when you go to give in that discussion a reason for watch

your hope. Your posture should be like what

he's encouraging you to do here. Now Christmas time especially,

we should be abounding with hope so greatly that those around us

should ask, what's the reason for your peace?

What's the reason for your hope? Why are you so at ease?

This past year might have brought you something really

heartbreaking with your job, with your family, whatever.

This past year, people might look and go, wow, how do you get

hope? And you should be ready to give

an answer for it. Now I must say that this passage

is widely, widely, widely misunderstood and widely

misinterpreted. OK, misrepresented now and in

what way you might have heard, in fact, I asked some people

I'll I'll do a survey. How many of you have heard this

passage taught on in a in a fashion of where maybe someone

took it out of context and they said you should be ready at any

minute. Be ready to give a defense for

your beliefs. Has anybody ever heard this talk

before Like you're doctrine, be ready to give an answer for what

you believe your doctrine. You should be ready and in and

out of season, right? Watch this.

On Friday, Jason, I were down in Grand Rapids and she needed to

do, we needed to do some errands.

She wanted to do some shopping. And then we went to the Kindle

Mart, which is like the Christmas market.

And she grown up in Germany again, had a really lovely time

there. So Friday I'm there and she's

shopping the mall and I go to Barnes and Nobles.

I love to be in a bookstore. And one of my students, I teach

guitar and one of my students was in the first service at

Hudson and he had asked me some questions recently that were

really profound for a high school kid.

And I won't tell you what he asked, but he had some questions

that he was asked me in text. And I said, well, let's talk

about it next guitar lesson. So we he showed up and, and I

explained him, I said, well, the things that you're asking about

these are issues of like apologetics.

That's a word you might not have heard before, but apologetics,

it's, it's not an apology for Christianity, but apologetics is

when we do study and be diligent about explaining the truths of

Christianity, typically to someone who's hostile towards

Christianity, OK, Someone who doesn't believe in the doctrines

or the, or the theology that we have.

So an apologist is somebody who studies apologetics and they

have, they're there to have answers.

And these answers come up. And I believe in doctrine and

theology. If you attend our church, you

know, it's very important to me to teach truth and to teach in a

way where we grow and our understanding.

So I was saying to Hudson, my guitar student friend, I said

so. So I answered some questions for

him. But when I was in Grand Rapids,

I picked up this book and it's called The Comprehensive Guide

to Apologetics because I realized it's like, OK, when I

was in seminary in college, I studied apologetics, but it's

some time ago. And so I wanted to freshen up on

what I know and what I want to learn about apologetics.

OK. So this is a tremendous book.

It's not meant to be read from cover to cover.

I don't think it's more of a a reference book, OK, And you can

go through and a lot of renowned scholars have answered questions

in here, OK, that you can look up in the table of contents.

This is a great book written by really wonderful people.

But watch how the book starts. And it's funny, I was teaching

on this and I ran across this one like I'm teaching on this

this weekend. That's how the Lord is.

So he starts his preface, the editor, and it says this, the

most important reason to do apologetics is that God told us

to do so. And I'm like, Amen.

Yes, he has. And it's as simple as that.

He says God told us to do it, so we must do it.

So says Doctor Norman Geisler, my primary mentor.

And what are the contributors of this book?

And then he says this. God calls us to be prepared to

make a defense to anyone who asks.

And he quotes first Peter 3:15 that I was going to be teaching

1 Peter 3:15

on this weekend. OK.

And then he goes on and he has some other things to say.

So he says the purpose of this book is that God has commanded

us to be ready to discuss and give reason for our faith.

And I believe he's right, but oddly enough, and I don't want

to be critical, but I'm telling you, I think he's

misrepresenting this passage. There are other places, yes and

the New Testament where we are encouraged to debate and and and

come and contend for the faith. Watch here.

Second Christians, this is Paul in this occasion in chapter 10

verse 5, Paul says we destroy arguments and every lofty

opinion raised against the knowledge of God.

What's Paul's posture and debating the truth of

Christianity. We're going to destroy lofty

opinions raised against God and his truth and take every thought

captive to obey Christ. Are we to be mindful and and

versed and educated and about our doctrine?

Yes, we should be. June 3, says Beloved, although I

was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I

found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for

the faith that was once and for all delivered to the Saints.

He's like, you should fight, contend, fight for truth.

The Bible, I do believe, tells us to do this.

But does first Peter 3 tell us to do this?

No, Peter is saying be instant in and out of season.

Be ready at any moment to give defense for the hope that you

have. And the editor of this book,

again, I recommend this book. It's a great book, but he cuts

it off. He says be ready to give, to

give defense and he tries to make it seem like it's for

apologetics. And again, it's I don't want to

be critical, but I'm just saying that I really believe that

Peter, if you cut him off, you miss his point.

His point is be ready to give reason for your hope.

And when it comes to explaining our faith and God working in US,

you can know. And I, I'm going to read this

book. I am.

I'm going to get in here and I'm going to get stuff in it.

But in the end, I am aware that Peter's posture and his approach

being such that he's saying be ready to give reason for your

hope is more effective in the end for a lot of people than

knowing how to argue well and debate well.

A lot of the things that are in this book that I'm going to read

and present probably in messages in the future.

But Peter is saying the hope that you have in Jesus is a

powerful tool to point people to God, the hope that you have at

Christmas time. And what I want to show you is

that we can be stirred to greater hope and faith and trust

and peace in God by what happened in Bethlehem in a

Manger 2000 and some years ago. The Christmas story should stir

us to greater hope. And when your hope abounds to a

certain place, people will ask you about it.

And Peter's saying, be ready to tell them why you abound in

hope. Now hope is the point of the

Christmas story. Watch this Romans 1512.

This is the apostle Paul writing to the church at Rome, and he is

going to quote Isaiah, the prophet that prophesied that

Jesus would come. And and here's Paul.

And again Isaiah says he's quoting Isaiah.

Again, Paul is, he says the root of Jesse will come.

Even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the

Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you

with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power

of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

Paul is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah's prophesying that the

Messiah Jesus will come through the root of Jesse, and by this

he means David, the father of David, the shepherd boy who

killed the Goliath and became this great king.

His father was Jesse, and the Old Testament prophets said that

the Messiah chief. Saying that Jesus will come and

he'll give hope to the Gentiles and he'll give hope to the Jews

and the God of the Gentile. By the way, someone who's non

Jewish and he says the God of hope, I mean Isaiah calls Paul

calls God the God of hope and he'll fill you with joy and

peace and believing when you believe in Jesus, one of the

benefits, the fruit following Christ is hope and joy and

peace. Even in the midst of sorrow and

struggling, what we find is that the joy that the angels sing

about in the Christmas story, we bring you good tidings of great

joy to all men. That joy that we find in God can

coexist with sorrow and struggle, and that's the life of

a follower of Jesus. We should abound in hope,

especially at Christmas. Now I want to unpack for you

what is hope to a Christian? If I had to give it a

definition, what is hope? Because it could be this vague

idea out there that that I want to, I want to give it.

I want to give it a definition, OK?

Hope that we have in Christ is a confidence that God has today,

tomorrow, and the future, knowing that God is in control,

God has a plan, God is working all things together.

We find that in Romans 828, right?

This is a foundational truth. It's often misquoted.

Also, Paul writes in Romans and we know that for those who love

God, all things work together for good, for those who are

called according to his purpose. Some people misquote that by

saying, hey, everything works together for good.

All things work for good. That's not true.

All things do not work for good, but all things work together for

the good to those who love God and are called according to his

purpose, right. So as followers of Jesus, Isaiah

prophesied about it, Paul talked about it.

He is the God of hope and our hope is a confidence that God

has today, tomorrow and the future.

An author that I'm fond of, his name is NT Wright.

He wrote a book called Surprised by Hope and it's a wonderful

book. I encourage you can get an audio

version of it or or a, a book version of it.

It's a great read, right? And I've done Bible studies

through it in the last several years with men's groups and

other things. But NT Wright writes us, He says

hope is, at least I'm paraphrasing him, but it's a

monumental idea of his book. Surprised by Hope.

Hope is more than optimism. It's not just like positive

thinking. The world has that.

I'll just stay positive, stay positive, be upbeat, whatever.

No hope is more than optimism, but it's a confident expectation

that God is in the process of making all things new and good.

God is making this world that is wrong, right When God builds the

garden of even creates the Garden of Eden and puts Adam and

Eve there, and they disobey God and they're cast out of the

garden, not as a punishment. They're cast out of the garden

because now that they've eaten from this tree, they will live

forever, but they'll live forever distant from God.

So when God casts them out, he's starting his process to redeem

us, right? And so he puts them out.

So they will die, but they can then be resurrected and God will

redeem us. And that's the plan from Genesis

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3 on the Bible is that it's a story of God leading his

people home, bringing us back to redemption.

So in Genesis 315, it says, I will put this is God speaking to

the snake or Satan in the garden?

And he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman.

Now, who's the woman that he's Speaking of?

We believe it's Eve. I'm not Eve.

I'm sorry. We believe it's Mary who will

deliver Jesus. So you and the woman and between

your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your

head and you shall bruise his heel.

OK, so God is saying, hey, here's the plan.

Through the woman, through Mary, Jesus will be born.

And when he is Satan, you, you, you'll bruise his heel, but he

is going to crush your head. You'll be done.

God is going to be victorious in the end.

That's the hope that is right there in Genesis.

Then in Luke 2, talking about the Christmas story, watch it

says, and this is the shepherd, the story of the shepherds and

the the the angels. And in the same region there

were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock

by night. And an Angel of the Lord

appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them

and they were filled with great fear.

And the Angel said to them, if you're not and others have hope,

for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be

for all the people. For unto you is born this day in

the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.

What is the good news that the angels bring?

They're bringing the news that God's plan is unfolding, the

prophecies of the Messiah to come in the Old Testament.

They're coming to pass. God's on the move.

He's working. You can have hope in this.

He is fulfilling what had been told and Matthew's telling the

story of Jesus being born in chapter 1.

It's the Angel having this discussion, Gabriel having a

discussion with Joseph, who will be Jesus's earthly father, if

you will. And it says she will bear a son,

and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his

people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill

what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear Son, and they shall

call his name Emmanuel. This is quoting again the Old

Testament prophets who said that God will be called the Messiah,

being born in Bethlehem will be called Emmanuel, which means God

with us. God's not distant, He's come to

dwell among us and it gives us hope.

Luke telling again more of the Christmas story.

This is the story of Mary talking with the Angel Gabriel

when he tells her that you are going to give birth to Jesus.

And he says to her, for nothing will be impossible with God.

You can hope nothing, nothing is impossible is what Gabriel says

to her. And then Mary said after that

she said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be

to me, according to your word. And the Angel departed from her.

The story of Christmas is a story of hope.

Seeing that God is in charge, He is fulfilling his plans and His

purposes, and we can have this confidence in it.

Now, what does living with hope, with God, hope that comes from

God? What does it look like for

Christians? Dallas Willard says this.

He says confidence in God is the foundation of a meaningful human

life, right? So when you look at all of the

chaos in the world and you look at all of the drama in

situations, you know, it can lead to just hopelessness,

right? People can just give up on life

and they go, oh, man, just, you know, just live, die and pay

your taxes, right? But no, God wants us as

Christians. We don't live that way.

We live, it's going, we can trust that God is working things

out. So I, I, I would illustrate it

to you this way. Jason and I were, as I said, we

were down in Grand Rapids on Friday and we went on Friday

knowing that there was going to be a snowstorm and coming back

from gather. We get snow all the time, right?

We're used to it. So we're down there, we're

shopping and then we wanted to go to this Chris, Chris kindle

marked and we we were just having a good time.

So we stayed longer and we didn't leave until around 730

knowing there was going to be snow as we drove N well, it

snowed and it really snowed hard right If you were out and about

Friday night. So it got dark and we it was

pretty good until we got that Big Rapids and then from Big

Rapids all the way to Gaylord. It was just like white out.

OK. And you've driven in this.

I know. I mean, you, you're you're from

the north, you know, So we're driving.

It's dark. And this is a story where I want

to illustrate what hope looks like in the life of a follower

of Jesus. I'm 6 foot 2.

And so I always put the seat as far back as it can go in our two

cars, right? Jace's car in my car.

But Jace is 5 foot two. She says she's 5 foot three.

It's not true. OK, But, but she puts the seat

all the way forward, OK, when she's driving all the way

forward, right? Well, when I'm driving in

whiteout conditions like that, I move the car seat forward,

right? Because I want to be right up

here like this, right? So it's it's white out.

You know, when you're driving like that and somebody passes

you on the left really fast, what happens?

Stirs up all the snow and then you can't see anything, right?

And I, I, I tell you that sometimes life is like this.

It's like you're feeling your way through the dark or you're

feeling your way through a snowstorm and you can't see the

way. But there was, you know, what I

do in that situation is I try to find a car that's going about

the pace that I'm going to go. And then I just follow their

lights, right? You've done this, right?

Just follow their lights. And I'm like, I'm glad I'm not

the one out front, right? So people flying by and when

they'll fly by and it's all this confusion, I'm just like seat

forward and like knuckling it. And I just like keep following

Kurt. Just keep going, man.

Just keep following those lights.

Here's my point is that when it's hard to see the way we are

followers of Jesus and Jesus shows the way and it's like

following him through through storms.

John 14, four through 6. This is Jesus talking to Thomas

after the resurrection. And Jesus says, and you know the

way to where I'm going? Oh, Jesus says to Thomas, you

know the way where I'm going, you know where I'm going.

And Thomas, man, he gets a bad rap, but I just love his honest

and we call him doubting Thomas. He was the disciple that didn't

believe that Jesus was resurrected and he said he

wouldn't believe until he touched the, you know, the

wounds in Jesus side and that's OK, right?

It's I'm like that. And but Jesus says to Thomas,

you know the way where I'm going and Thomas goes, Lord, we don't

know where you're going. I don't know where you're going.

How can we know the way? And Jesus said I'm the way and

I'm the truth and the life and no one comes to the father.

In other words, no one gets home except through me.

So when I'm driving white knuckling Friday night, I'm

like, if I keep following, then I'll get home.

Now, The thing is, I follow far enough where I I'm following

this person in front of me, knowing that they could end up

in the ditch, right? If they end up flying off the

road, then I'm not following them anymore, right?

So I'm following just far enough back where it's like, Oh my

gosh, they're going off the road, not me, right?

So I can't trust that they'll stay in the road, but I'm

following them. The thing with Jesus is that

he's the way the truth and the life and the Holy Spirit that is

in US can lead us through Blizzard like conditions in

life. And we go through life with this

hope that comes in Jesus. Sometimes it looks like we're

white and huckling it, but even in those moments it's like, OK,

God's stirring me a confidence that you're leading me.

And that's the point of the Christmas story.

Jesus fulfilling God, fulfilling his promises to us.

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

And I'll tell you another story. If you feel like you've lost

hope this Christmas season, know this.

That hope is in the house or I'll say in the car.

And what do I mean by this? Sometimes you'll go through life

and you're a follower of Jesus. And maybe there was a season in

your life where you were idealistic and you believe God

promises in his word. But then life happened and maybe

you've gone to living, even though you're Christian, you're

you believe Jesus is Lord and he's the Lord of your life.

But yet you find your place and a place where like you've lost

hope. Where is it?

And you seem hopeless. I compare it to this.

I have an Apple iPad and, and I use it all the time.

And I have an Apple Pencil, right?

And I need my pencil the way that I use my iPad, my pencil, I

need it right? Need at least I want it right.

And so a couple of times I've lost my Pencil, my Apple Pencil,

but I've lost it like in the house.

Like I know I got home with it. I know it's here somewhere.

It's in the house. I just have to find it.

And sometimes it's hard. And I'll tell you a couple of

times I've lost it for like two or three weeks and then I'll

find it like a certain, I looked under the bed, but I couldn't

find it. And then finally it's like, oh,

it was there under the bed, right?

Or in the couch was in the couch or dropped out of my, you know,

out of my case or I compared to this.

We were in Texas a couple weeks ago for Thanksgiving with

family. And my car is not such, but

Jason's car is a car where you have the FoB, right?

You have the key fob, right? And those with the key fob you

just as long as the keys on you, you can get in the car and you

can start the car, right, right. And so we lost the key fob, but

we lost it in the car. We couldn't find it.

I had my flashlight, I'm looking everywhere.

I'm moving the seats forward and backwards and I'm moving things

up. But the crazy thing is, is that

it was in the car. So we kept starting the car.

We went for three days, we just kept driving everywhere.

It's like it's in the car, I can't find it, but it's

somewhere here. And to me, hope is like this

because sometimes you're like, I can't quite find it.

I don't feel it. I don't feel hopeful and yet you

can remind yourself, it's like, well, I get up and I go to work

every day. I push the start button and I

get there and then I come home and I feel hopeless.

But I'm telling you, hope is in the car.

Hope is in the house. God has hope available for you.

You just have to be diligent to keep looking for it.

And the Christmas story is especially a time where we can

find hope in the promises fulfilled in Bethlehem, in the

Manger with the donkeys and Mary and Joseph.

God fulfilled his promises. And there were times like

they're occupied by the Romans. It was a time where great hope

seemed to be like, oh man, where is hope?

Well, it's in the house, it's in the car.

It's there. You just keep going and then

it'll show up. You'll find it, but you have to

be diligent to say, God, give me hope again, show it to me again.

And some of you have lived. Maybe something happened.

I don't know what your story's been, but maybe there was

something that got dashed your hope and you just kept starting

the car and kept going. But you want to find it.

You want to put your fingers on it again.

And what Peter is saying, man, this is I, I, I pray you get

this because this is such a really profound truth for

Christians to get that Peter's not saying give, be ready to

give a dogmatic, precise right argument for your doctrine.

I believe in doctrine. Yes, I want to be right

doctrine. I so want that.

But the bigger influence to the world around you is when you

have hope and it makes no sense. Paul calls it peace.

That goes beyond understanding. And when you walk, it's because

you have Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit.

You get through things like you never thought you'd get through

and you keep going and you have hope still, even though the

circumstances like those that Peter is writing to and first

Peter, their lives were such where maybe they should have

been hopeless, but they're not. They have hope.

And Peter says be instant, ready in and out of season to give

reason, a defense for your hope, the Christmas season, the

Christmas story. As you lean in in the next

couple weeks, my hope and my prayer for you is that you'll

say God renew and stir up a trust in you, working all things

together for the good of those who love you and are called

according to your purposes, God. As I see what you did in

Bethlehem, let it affect the way I follow you, even though

sometimes it feels like I'm white knuckling it.

The Psalmist writes this and these are great prayers.

Maybe these could be some prayers that you'd pray in the

days to come. In Psalm 130, verse five, he

says, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits.

And in his word, I hope. Wow, that's a great one to

memorize. I wait for the Lord God.

I'm waiting for you. God, show up.

Stir in me greater hope. God, give it back to me again.

Psalm 39, seven, this psalmist says, and now, O Lord, for what

do I wait? My hope is in you.

Even the Old Testament writers were declaring where their hope

came from. It came from God.

So to end, I just want to ask you a couple questions.

How are you with your hope? Are you abounding in hope?

If you've never given your life to Christ, well then I would say

you have not yet received the hope that comes from God, that

comes through the Holy Spirit, that comes through Christ.

So then I'm going to pray here in a few minutes and I want to

invite you to make the decision to follow Jesus, to commit your

life to Him and receive the hope that you can only find in Him

and eternal life that you get now.

You don't have to wait to die to get eternity in you.

You get it when you're born a second time in Christ.

OK, but if you're a follower of Jesus, where how are you and

your hope? You might say, I have so much

hope. God has got me through so much.

And I'm just abounding in hope that I say this Christmas

season, I hope that someone asks you about it.

I hope that they ask you about it because remembering the

goodness of God shown at the birth of Christ builds our hope.

Remembering the story of Jesus, it should stir us to greater and

greater hope. And then I want to encourage you

to do this practice giving reason for the hope that you

have. Maybe you just wanted to maybe

drive into work. You want to tell God, God, this

is what I would tell somebody if they asked me about my hope.

You could say, yeah, it looks like I should have been

hopeless. Look like your upbringing.

Maybe you came from really dysfunctional place and you're

you should be like this and you're not.

And you go, man, I got hope every everybody in your family

system, your family is maybe they were hopeless types, but

you found hope. And you get to say I found it in

Christ. I found it in Jesus and my life

was altered greatly because of the hope that I found in Jesus.

Figure out how you can testify and give a defense instant in

and out of season for the hope that you find in Jesus,

especially this Christmas season.

Let me pray for us. God, I'm so grateful for this

passage. I thank you for the passages and

it occurs to contend for the faith and where Paul says we

tear down untruths and those who speak against the knowledge of

God. Thank you for those passages,

but this one and encourages us to be ready to explain and give

reason for our hope. God, thank you for Peter's

encouragement, and I pray that as a church, our posture will

not be dogmatic arguments about politics or denominational

differences or anything. We want to contend for truth.

Yes, God, but we want to do it like Peter encourages, with

humility and sympathy and unity. Let us be unified, God, I pray

in the hope that we find in you. Let that be something that draws

us together. We share it in common hope that

we have in you and I pray that you'll stir it up this Christmas

season and in the next few weeks while we're recalling and

studying and remembering the Christmas story, even next week

when our kids are telling the story in the simplest way, I

pray that we'll renew and strengthen our hope as found in

you. And then still in a prayerful

minds mindset, I, I want to give a moment.

If you're here this morning, you've never surrendered your

life to Christ. You've never made that decision

to become a Christian. What does that look like?

It means you get to a place in your life where it's like, OK, I

want Jesus to be the Lord of my life.

You are created to have a relationship with God and God

through the birth, birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and his life

and his resurrection, his crucifixion.

That's God's plan to redeem you, to win you back.

And but you God doesn't force it on us.

Instead, we are to believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord

and to confess it with our mouth.

And that's when we receive the salvation that comes through

Jesus. So this morning.

I want to invite you into that relationship.

It takes a turning away from your own sin and you say, OK, I

no longer want to be the Lord of my life.

I want to surrender my life to Jesus and ask him to be my

Savior. My Lord, you give him control

over your life and your pursuit of him.

So I'm going to pray and I encourage you to believe in your

heart and to confess it as I pray.

Pray with me to receive his salvation.

You can pray something like this.

Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and I believe

that, Jesus, you are God and you were born in Bethlehem as a

baby. God, you became a human being

and you came and you dwelt among us, and you went through so much

to redeem us, to win us back. So Jesus, I want to follow you,

I want to receive your salvation.

So I repent of my sin and others.

I want to turn away. I don't understand everything

about doctrine and scripture yet, but I do want to grow in

it. But I make this decision

initially to confess with my mouth that you were Lord, and I

want to receive your life and I want to follow after your ways.

Lead me as we white knuckle it sometimes to life.

And then I think you do put eternity in me now and I will

spend forever with you with that eternal life that I can

experience even here in this side of eternity.

I receive you now in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.

If that's you this morning and you decided to become a follower

of Jesus, then e-mail me [email protected] or find

me after the service or tell a friend that you know as a

Christian, say I made this decision, I'm in.

And then our next encouragement to you would be to be baptized,

which we'll have here in a few months.

So we encourage you to be baptized, which is an hour

expression of what God has done in you.

When you are dunked underwater. It's, it's inside of God

cleansing you and resurrecting you in him.

All right, let's all stand together.

Thank you so much for coming. I hope that you enjoy the sunny,

beautiful day. I'm going to go home and blow my

driveway out. I did it twice yesterday and

there was still a ton of snow when I left this morning.

So I will be doing that this afternoon.

Don't forget, ladies, you can sign up on your way out for the

ladies Christmas table to sign up to A10 or to host a table.

I want to send you out with a blessing.

So if you'll prepare your heart to receive this blessing before

you go, and now may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may

he make his face to shine upon you.

And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of glory

made abound to you. And may the peace of God, that

that surpasses all understanding, may surprise you

in the midst of the challenges that life brings.

And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the

forgiveness of God, that's new every morning.

May it be especially new to you in your mornings to come.

And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your

mind and your hope, your salt and your light.

Go now and be salt and light into the world.

You were blessed. Merry Christmas.

We'll see you again soon.