Hope Of The World | Our Ultimate Hope (December 6th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, let's get our Bibles open now to not Acts, but Matthew chapter one.

Matthew chapter one as we start our Christmas series off today, Hope of the World.

Now, I don't think that I am going out on a limb whatsoever here or saying anything that hasn't already been said many times when I say that 2020 is a year that I think we'd all like to put behind us.

Are you feeling that?

I I mean I know that I am certainly.

I think in general, um, I think we would all sort of like to, you know, kind of light a match and uh and throw it over uh our shoulders on the last 10 months and just watch all of that kind of burn like a bad movie.

Um I think that has certainly been many of our hearts, many people are longing for that.

And of course, there have been a number of factors that have contributed in us uh feeling that way.

Obviously, COVID has had uh a huge role in the world and in our lives, and much has been said about it.

Of course, it's the it's the lockdowns and it's the threat of more lockdowns, and not sure what's gonna happen, and being at home and kids, are they at school, are they not at school?

Um it's it's mask wearing and all the different opinions about that, and and the reality that it's not super fun uh to be to have to wear masks.

It's the the financial burden and the hits that some or even many of us have had, or the hits on our economy, certainly with small businesses and and I mean many other areas that's been uh really, really difficult.

Uh but it's not just it's not just COVID, it's it's the civil unrest that we've seen happen in our own country and certainly again uh to the south of us, and uh and a lot of the protests and the rioting and a lot of the turmoil that has been going on uh down there.

For you, some of the factors here and contributing to just wanting to walk away from 2020 is you know the crazy election that just happened in the US and still seems to be somewhat going on uh down there.

But maybe for you it's just been other personal issues that you've gone through.

It has nothing to do with COVID really or an election or anything like that.

It's been something else in your life, and and you're kind of like, great, you know, add that to the burn pile as well.

It's a relational thing, it's it's a health thing.

Maybe it's I don't know, it could be anything like that.

Now, even as I mentioned some of those examples, uh you might be feeling that that familiar wave of discomfort flood your heart again.

Right?

It's maybe it's the anxiety of living in such uncertain times.

Right?

Like not knowing where this is all going.

It's it's the fear of of what might lie ahead.

What is 2021 gonna look like?

Yeah, I'm kind of done with 2020, but what about next year?

Right?

Maybe it's the growing angst inside of you that is boiling and even raging about how things have been handled.

Maybe by some of our government leaders, or maybe it's your boss, or even some of the turmoil within your own conversations in your own family about these kinds of things.

Right?

I think all of this, all of it, can amount to a world, you know, a society, even a church, that's experiencing a growing sense of hopelessness.

Have you sensed that?

I don't know about you, but I I think losing hope is one of the darkest things, maybe the darkest thing that a person can experience.

And I believe that we're seeing it skyrocket these days.

I mean, the stats certainly support this.

When you think about mental health across the land, I mean that is just plummeting.

You think about suicide rates, they're they're higher and higher.

It's it's domestic abuse that's happening inside because people are just at home more.

It's it's gambling debt that's higher than ever.

It's it's sexual addictions, online pornography, that kind of thing.

It's just like it's high, it's high, right?

It's drug and alcohol dependency, all these things, like the mainstream media, they're not really telling you about.

But again, the stats are staggering when it comes to this type of thing.

The explosion of these problems this year alone shows us a couple of things.

It shows us that that people are both looking for hope in all the wrong places, and then of course not finding it.

And the result is personal and and certainly societal disarray and despair.

So, hey, what timing for a Christmas series on hope?

Right?

Do you feel that?

I know that I am.

If you have been losing your sense of hope, or maybe it feels like you've lost it completely, hey, the answer is Jesus Christ, bottom line.

He is the answer.

Whether you are uh like an atheist or or an agnostic or you're a seeker, right, and you're and you and you're kind of looking for something that you're that will satisfy your soul, and and somehow you kind of stumbled upon our church and and across our service today.

Okay, or or perhaps you're a lifelong follower of Jesus Christ.

That would be that would be many of us here, but you're just feeling beat down from 2020.

Listen, no matter who you are, the answer is Jesus Christ, right?

He is the hope of this world.

And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna spend the next three Sundays together delving into this idea, into this topic.

Today we're gonna start things off by looking at the foundation of this and and the birth of Jesus Christ, the ultimate hope that he came to bring us.

Okay, next week we're gonna look at a different passage in the Old Testament and how uh how you and I can fight for hope.

Right?

We live in a world where it seems like sometimes we have hope and it's kind of there and it's easily within our grasp, and other times it feels like a million miles away, and we kind of cycle back and forth.

We kind of move in and out from hope, and it is such a fight, it is such a battle, and so we're gonna look at that.

How can we fight for hope when you sense that yours is withering?

And then lastly, three weeks from now, we're gonna see what a person who abounds in hope looks like.

Do you realize that's that's supposed to be us?

We're supposed to abound in it, have lots of it.

Yes, even in a world that seems to be coming apart at the seams.

Okay, but God's mission to bring us hope and to really be our hope is kicked into gear here as we see it when Jesus was born.

And so let's take a look at this passage now, Matthew chapter 1, starting in verse 18, reading down to the end of the chapter.

Matthew 1 · chapter mention

Here's what it says now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

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.

And behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

And when Joseph woke from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

Lord, we thank you that in this text that I mean almost seems understated here, Lord, we see that the greatest hope of the world is found in your son.

And God, I pray that as we look at this passage, a passage that many of us have read many, many times, Lord, I pray that we would understand that you are our ultimate hope.

Lord, our our our biggest problem you have dealt with.

And Lord, we know that you are ultimately going to come again and make all things new.

And so, Lord, I pray that we would find hope in you again, hope in what you have done, hope in what you promised to do.

Father, that that would have a major impact on how we interact in this world, how we deal with the temporal uh circumstances and disappointments and problems that we face.

And so, God, I pray that by your Holy Spirit you would do a work in your church today, Lord.

I pray that you would lay some groundwork for where our hope is to be found, God.

And I pray that you would save somebody today, Lord.

I pray somebody who's searching, who's seeking, who's who's scared, who's fearful, who has just simply lost all hope, Lord.

I pray that they would find it in their Maker.

And so, God, would you work in power in our church?

Work in us, Lord.

I pray that it would be to the glory of your Son, and we pray this all in his name.

Amen.

Amen.

Well, here we go, uh, jumping into the first thing here, just two points today.

Okay, Jesus Christ is our ultimate hope, sent as the one who reverses hopelessness.

All right.

Now, let me give you uh just a little bit of an overview here of what has led us up to Matthew chapter one and the passage that we just looked at together.

Okay, so kind of a mini Old Testament, very mini Old Testament flyover, if I may.

All right, it all really, when you think about what the significance of Matthew chapter one here, it all you gotta really go back to the very beginning of the Bible, in Genesis chapter one.

And in there, we know that in the first verses of the Bible it says that in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And in the Genesis account, the creation account talks about he literally made everything.

He made the universe, he made everything in the universe, and then as kind of the pinnacle of his creation, the cherry on top, if you will, he made our original parents, the very first humans, Adam and Eve.

Okay, and he created them to exist in a thriving, perfect, undestroyed relationship with him.

No roadblocks in the way of that, no problems existed whatsoever in God's relationship with the very first humans, Adam and Eve, at least that's how it was in the very beginning.

I mean, can you even imagine that?

I mean, that's really all we can do at this point is just picture what it would be like to just be in this perfect relationship with God, with no sense of sin, guilt, shame, fear, all of that, having anything, not coming to bear on it at all.

Right?

That is what our original parents enjoyed in the very beginning.

I mean, an amazing, amazing thing.

But here's the thing.

All of that had completely come apart, fallen apart by Genesis chapter three.

Okay, so so not that far into the story.

And and the whole thing falling apart is is known as the fall.

Okay, it's the fall where where Adam and Eve chose to disobey God.

Right?

God's command on them is that they would not eat the fruit from this certain tree.

And Satan got into the mix and and he tempted Eve and ultimately Adam as well, and they decided, no, we want to go against God's command for us.

We want to do this, and so they ate from the tree.

And that immediately brought sin into their hearts and and became this barrier between them and God.

Okay, and again, because they were the first humans, as they as they had kids and as humanity spread across the globe, every single person born after that is is infected by sin.

We have what we what is now known as a sin nature.

Okay, but as God is dealing with them in Genesis chapter 3, okay, in the fall, and he's doling out the consequences and he's banishing them from the garden now, he actually says this really amazing thing in there where he he breathes hope into what was a pretty brutal situation, to put it mildly.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And he says there that Eve is going to have an offspring and he will come and he will crush Satan.

I mean, you think about the amazingness of God saying that right off the bat.

I am coming for you.

I am going to come, I am going to fix all things, I'm gonna make what you have have wrecked, I am going to make it right again.

There's that this glimmer, this infusion of hope right in the very beginning.

Now, as the years march on and and Adam and Eve they multiply, and again, people spread across the land, God decides to choose this one man named Abraham and his descendants, who would go on to be known as Israel, as the Jews.

He chooses them to be his people.

Okay, where he promises to be their God, he's gonna give them land, and he's going to redeem them.

Okay, and so he enters into this covenant or this contract with Abram and with his people that he would explain to them over and over again throughout the Old Testament and remind them that, hey, this is going to happen.

I'm going to redeem you, which again is just another jolt, multiple jolts along the way, of hope.

Okay, things are not looking good, but don't worry, I am coming.

Now, Israel, they end up having this extremely messy history, as we all do individually, right, of uh of rebelling against God.

And sometimes they would follow him and they would repent and they would turn to him, and other times they would decide, no, in their pride, I'm gonna go do my own thing.

Again, that's the sinful nature part in them, and it all kind of culminates in this period of uh of hundreds of years of slavery to the Egyptians.

And you might remember how God sent Moses and the burning bush to redeem his people and to rescue them out of slavery and bring them into a promised land.

All of that, again, is to be is a picture or a symbol of what God was gonna do through Jesus Christ to rescue us ultimately from the penalty of sin.

And so as he rescues his people out of Egypt and they and they start to move through the wilderness, you remember that on the mountain, God gives them his law.

Right?

God's law, you might uh uh be familiar with the Ten Commandments, right?

Even if you're not a very churchy person, you've probably heard of the Ten Commandments and are somewhat familiar with them.

Well, the the Ten Commandments, and it was expanded uh much more so in Leviticus, all of that was considered to be God's holy standard.

So here is what I expect of my people.

If you want to be right, if you want to be good, if you want to be righteous and pure and perfect, you have to follow all of these commands.

Now, the whole point, or one of the biggest points of giving God's people, giving humanity the law, was to help us to see really two things.

To see that the standard is perfection, to see the the awesomeness and the holiness of God, okay, to understand that, and then also to realize that wait a second, I can't possibly follow all those commands.

I I I'm not gonna be able to follow those perfectly.

In fact, I I never have.

We've all in some way broken all of God's uh law.

We've broken his standard, we've fallen short.

Now, in the centuries that follow, I'm gonna pick up a lot of steam here through the timeline, okay?

Israel continued, again, to reject God from time to time and and and and asked, and we don't want you to be our leader, we want a human king.

And so God was like, this isn't gonna go well for you.

Like, no, we want a king.

And so he gave them a king.

It started with Saul and then David and many, many others, and and and God's people through the king would would sometimes follow God and obey him and walk with him, and and other times they would not.

They would rebel against him further and walk even further away than some of the other nations who didn't know or or care about God at all would do.

Throughout these seasons, throughout the years, God would send prophets to his people to warn them of the evil that they were committing and urge them to repentance and to come back to the Lord as they humble themselves.

And at times they would do that, at times they would not, they would even kill God's prophets because they didn't want to hear it, right?

It was their pride.

Right?

All of that at times just so dark and and again appearing to be so so hopeless.

Now, one of those prophets was a man named Isaiah, okay, and in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 and 7 here, Israel is is given through the prophet Isaiah uh this promise that redemption is still coming, even though things are dark, even though things aren't good.

Isaiah 9:6

Okay, and notice here as we look at this, who this is talking about.

Okay, and notice the the hope that that is built right into these words here, keeping in mind as well that these words were written 700 years before Jesus was born.

Look at it with me.

It says this for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, of the increase of his government or his reign, and of peace there will be no end.

And on the throne of David, uh, and over his kingdom to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness, from this time forth forevermore.

I love this part, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

Alright, and so you see here throughout Israel's history, throughout mankind's history, that God continues to bear with rebellious people, and at multiple points along the way, through the Old Testament and with the Jews, throughout their history, he lets them know that listen, there is hope.

Right?

Hope is is coming.

He is their hope.

Right?

And that they should put their hope in him and in his redemptive plan.

Okay, which more or less brings us now to Matthew chapter one.

Again, that's kind of just a tidbit there of history.

Okay, but but Matthew chapter one, where the infusion of hope that humanity has so desperately needed and been craving for so long, whether they knew it or not, had finally arrived.

It's finally here.

So many centuries of mankind learning the hard way that what we need more than anything else, anything at all, is a restored relationship with our Creator, with our Maker.

Years of looking for hope and peace and joy and happiness and meaning in life, all of that, apart from God, where it will never be found.

Okay, and so through Jesus, right, through grace, through his love, God enters down into creation with the people that he loves to reverse the hopelessness of all of that.

To be the very solution that to that ache that that you and I have have experienced and have felt in our own souls for something that is true, right?

For something that is lasting and satisfying again, hope.

Okay, so with that, verse 18.

Okay, we're finally there.

Okay, and notice here how even in this incredible event that humanity has been waiting for, the birth of Jesus, right?

Finally it's here.

Notice here though, though, how there's uh there's a moment of hopelessness.

Okay, for for Joseph, as as he thinks his marriage is done, right?

He thinks it's over before it's even began.

Take a look at this with me.

It says this.

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way.

When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph.

Okay, so so betrothal, um, if if you're not sure of what that is, it was it was when a man and a woman were were legally pledged to be married.

All right, so like a like a more hardcore version of like engagement that couples uh do before they get married today.

Okay, so betrothal was like a uh again, a binding contract that was only broken by by either death or divorce, right?

Just as in marriage.

So same kind of thing there.

Okay, so so during a betrothal period, which typically was about a year, all right, um, the man was considered the husband, okay, even though the wedding ceremony hadn't happened yet, while the woman continued to live at home with her parents.

Alright, so it says, look at it with me again.

Okay, before they came together, okay, meaning before they consummated their relationship, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

Okay, that's not every day that you hear that.

Okay, now Luke's gospel unpacks that a little bit.

Uh more for us.

It explains that the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in a vision, came to her in a in a in a dream, to explain to her that even though she was uh a virgin, she would conceive and she would bear a son uh through the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Luke chapter one, uh the the angel Gabriel says to her, he says, He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.

And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.

A lot of parallels to the to the Isaiah part here in this passage.

All right, so this is what had been explained to Mary, right?

The angel shows up uh to her, but at this point in Matthew, uh Joseph has no clue of what's going on.

Right?

He hasn't brought been brought in on the plan yet, right?

He thinks his betrothed has committed adultery, right?

He thinks that that Mary has cheated on him, which, I mean, think about it, it would have obviously brought his world crashing down, right?

Just total devastation.

He thinks, he thinks there's there's no hope whatsoever for his for his marriage to be able to, this relationship to continue.

Okay, so take a look at verse 19 as we pick it up again.

It says, and her husband, Joseph, being a just man, okay, so he was a law-abiding, okay, law-abiding man, and unwilling to put her to shame, okay, which which tells us something great about his character, right?

He had a great, great character, he didn't want to shame her in all of this.

It says that he resolved to divorce her quietly.

Okay, then the first part of verse 20 says, but as he considered these things, okay, so as he's as he's chewing on all of this, as he as he's grappling with this turn of events, and I'm sure grieving and trying to figure out like how how do I best move forward here, right?

He's dealing with the kind of example uh uh of disappointment that life can throw at any of us.

I'm sure we've all dealt with disappointment in various uh different ways.

Right?

We all face these scenarios, uh difficult things.

We all face curveballs that are thrown at us, bad news that threatens to puncture holes in our soul, so to speak, where where hope starts to leak out of us.

Sometimes it's a slow leak, sometimes it all seems to come out at once.

Again, that's kind of been 2020, I think, in some ways for many of us.

Okay, but notice that there's this transition taking place in the text here.

Okay, look at it again.

It says, but, okay, as he considered these things, so he says that things are gonna change here.

It says, Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

Okay, so so an angel of the Lord steps in.

Okay, and we'll get to what he actually said here in just a sec.

Okay, but but the simple fact of the angel's arrival into Joseph's life, into this devastating crisis that he's facing, signals to us that God is about to reverse this.

Right?

He's about to change the stories, reversing the hopelessness that Joseph is currently experiencing in this moment.

The angel's about to explain to him the situation and ease Joseph's concerns uh uh about his marriage.

And in this, you and I, we see the incredible heart of our God for us.

He doesn't want you and I to get in or remain bogged down in the thick muck of hopelessness.

He doesn't want us to be there.

He knows that hopelessness is so detrimental to us in so many different ways.

And he longs to just reach down and and grab hold of our hand and pull us up out of that.

Now, now, maybe though, you're thinking about your own situation, maybe it's your own current one, and and you're kind of thinking, okay, buddy, like like I've been struggling over here for a while, and and God doesn't seem to be fixing my situation at all.

I mean, that's great for Joseph and everything, but but what about me?

Now, hear me on this.

Okay, I'm not saying that the Lord will smooth out every single circumstance and situation that you and I face.

Though some of them he does.

What I am saying is that he does want to reverse the hopelessness that you might be feeling about yours.

Okay, and reorient where your hope is, you know, longs for and what it runs to.

Because understand this.

Remember, church, hey, our our hope is is not to be anchored down ultimately into this misguided thought that that all of life's problems should just be solved and and really just go away or or go our way.

Right?

Our hope is to be anchored to the God of our problems, of our circumstances, of our situations, right?

The God who who made us and and is in control of literally the entire universe.

Okay, so let me let me pose the question to you this way, okay?

Do you actually believe, do you today, do you believe that the Lord God wants to reverse your hopelessness?

Do you believe that?

I'm not asking you for like, what's the correct answer?

We know what the correct answer is.

Do you actually, deep down in your soul, believe that God wants to reverse your hopelessness?

And do you want that?

Okay, or do you tend to believe, do you tend to desire, most of all, for God to reverse your circumstances and your difficulties and the problems that you're dealing with.

You see the big difference there in that when our when our hope is set on seeing our circumstances reverse, man, we're just setting ourselves up for disappointment, aren't we?

We're setting ourselves up for those feelings of hopelessness to to invade our mind and invade our heart and our souls.

Because at the end of the day, God doesn't promise that.

Right?

Though He does promise that even in the problems that we face, all things work together for good.

Okay, and so we have to we have to kind of bolt that truth on to the equation as well and recognize that even if our circumstances continue to go sideways or don't get smoothed out or don't go the way that we want them to, God can and will and and promises to still work those situations out for good somehow in the way that he chooses.

Right?

In in our hearts and our understanding of him and how he wants to use us, all kinds of different ways that he can and will do that.

Okay, but when we desire, when we hope in God, when we hope in Jesus Christ Himself, and you know, you think about His His nature, His attributes, that God is good and holy and love, when you think about His character in those things, you think of the plan of the gospel, His ways, right?

His glory.

Okay, when we hope in Him and in those things, then our hopelessness can actually be reversed.

Even when some of our life circumstances are not.

Now, the key word there really is sum, sum of our circumstances.

Because if you think about it, the very worst circumstance that you and I have all found ourselves in actually has been fixed.

Okay, and that's really the next thing here, the final thing.

Jesus Christ is our ultimate hope, arriving to solve our greatest problem by far.

We pick it up in verse 20 again.

It says, But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream.

Okay, we read that, saying this now, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife.

Okay, he's saying, he's saying, Take heart, Joseph, because I'm about to tell you where your ultimate hope should be found.

He goes on, he says, For that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

Okay, and then here it is, okay, this is mankind's greatest problem by far.

Jesus is here to fix it, he is here to solve it.

It says this, for he will save his people from their sins.

You better believe we're coming back to that.

Okay, but keep going.

Verse 22.

It says, and all this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.

Okay, this is Isaiah, again, 700 years before Jesus was born.

Look at what verse 23 says.

And this is a quote out of Isaiah chapter 7.

Isaiah 7 · chapter mention

It says, Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He took his wife, but knew her not.

So he didn't consummate the marriage.

It says, until she had given birth to a son, and he called his name Jesus.

Now, the last part there of verse 21, I said we'd come back to it when it says there that, for he will save his people from their sins.

I mean, that is the crux of this entire passage.

If you think about it, that's the crux of the entire Bible.

That's really it.

Right?

The the the very thing, that very thing is what delivers the knockout punch to our hopelessness.

Right?

That's it.

Because there's simply no greater problem that you and I have ever faced or ever will face than the fact that you and I have sinned against a holy God, a righteous God.

There is no hope to be found in this world, in this life, in this year, right?

Than the hope that is found in knowing and accepting and trusting that Jesus Christ has arrived to save us from our sin.

From the penalty, right?

From the punishment of it, from the eternal consequences that you and I have earned and that you and I deserve because we too have rejected God, just like just like the Israelites had, right?

We've rebelled against him, we've broken his law, the Ten Commandments, we've all fallen short of his standard.

The standard is not, hey, try your best to be pretty good here and you'll be fine.

That's not the standard.

The standard is be perfect, or you cannot hope whatsoever to stand before a God who is so holy and is so righteous, and left to ourselves to fix that problem.

I mean, we're we're toast.

There's no hope whatsoever for any of us.

Okay, but left to Christ and the work that He did through His perfect life.

He followed the law perfectly through through his death, through His resurrection, through that, there is eternal hope for you and I.

Ultimate hope that we would be forgiven, that we would be saved from our sin.

Which of course we are when we trust Him by faith.

Have you done that?

If you're here today or you're watching from home and you've never begun a relationship with God, can I urge you to do that today?

It's admitting your brokenness, admitting your sin, taking responsibility for that, and then recognizing that Jesus, Jesus fixed it all on the cross.

He shattered death, he shattered the power of hell when he rose from the grave.

You don't you don't have to, you don't have that as your destination anymore because of what Jesus Christ did.

But you've got to receive the gift of salvation.

You believe it, you receive it by by faith, by believing in what Jesus has done for you.

It's a gift that God wants to give you.

Have you done that?

Listen, church, if you have done that, then marvel with me today about it again.

And every day, that by far the greatest problem, right, your worst circumstance, your most hopeless situation that you've ever faced is what to do about your sin.

And Jesus Christ solved it for you.

He's done it.

It's over.

Allow your hope to root down deep into that truth, into that reality.

Okay, and learn to see your current life problems in light of the fact that your greatest one has been solved.

It's been fixed.

See, when you and I are gripped by that truth, by the reality, by the power of the gospel, by what Jesus Christ has done for us, when we're truly grateful for that, right, and we're drawn to the Lord and in his goodness and his grace, and we want to worship him because of who he is and what he's done, as that happens in our hearts and in our lives, then we gain valuable perspective on whatever difficulties you and I might be facing in 2020 or at any point in life.

Again, if if your deepest hopes, okay, are tied to this pandemic finally being over, it's tied to when's a vaccine gonna be here?

Right?

Or your hope is tied to a government that that you can get behind and support.

Or if your greatest hopes are tied to you know racial tensions being fixed through through mankind's solutions, or if your hope is is rooted into you know getting out of this financial bind that you've gotten into this year, remember that your greatest problem, the world's greatest problem, sin, has been taken care of.

That's why Jesus came.

Hold fast to that hope, knowing that we can have that ultimate hope in the midst of whatever chaos might be going around us, inside us, in our world.

Listen, I want to pray for us today again.

As I've been thinking about just you know our church and thinking about the world and and all of that, I I do really get the sense that that we need hope.

Right?

And it's it's it's draining out of us.

We know that it's been a hard year.

I've said it like 10 times today alone, right?

And so let's let's pray, as I pray, join me and pray for yourself.

Agree along in your spirit that the Lord would anchor our deepest hopes to the gospel and what he has done.

Let's remember that this Christmas.

Again, not just for our own personal peace, so that, but so that we can take that good news to other people.

We've all got people living in houses on our streets who are just dying for this stuff.

Right?

And so let's let's pray now and ask that the Lord would well this up within us, and it wouldn't just be a fleeting thing for you know the rest of this morning that we're together, but it'd be something that truly transforms us, and the Lord would use it to shine the light of the gospel into the world around us.

Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your word again, Lord, and how I mean, even in this own text, in any text really, we can just kind of glance over it.

We can we can cruise over this and and miss uh you know, such a thunderous statement as verse 21 says, for he will save his people from their sins.

Lord, thank you that you have done this.

Thank you that the biggest debacle ever, which is our rebellion, has been fixed.

God, I pray that that would not just be some abstract truth out there somewhere, but Lord, it would be something that that truly impacts our soul, that fills us with hope, that fills us with joy, that motivates us, that transforms us.

And so, God, as we gather over the next couple of weeks here to talk about Christmas and to talk about what you have done and to focus in on this immensely important topic of hope, God, I pray that you would fill our church with it.

You would get our eyes on Jesus, Lord.

All the circumstances and the difficulties that we are going through, Lord, we don't want to minimize those.

We don't want to make light of those by no means, Lord, but we want to right size them.

We want to see them in light of what our true hope is.

And so, God, would you would you help us in the different ways that we need it to get our hope off of those things and onto you?

God, we need your grace, we need your spirit, we need your power, we need you to lead us to repentance in some of these things.

God, we need you to fill us with joy and urge us forward, Lord.

Give us the will and the desire, Lord, to follow you.

And so, God, I pray that as we think about these things, and Lord, I pray that as we sing and as we worship you, Lord, you would be honored by this, and you would be glorified.

And it's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.