14th December 2025 Jo's talk on Hope and Waiting

And if anybody is wondering why the youth have all run off, I'm

hoping it's not because they they've heard me speak before

and they're terrified. I normally do youth on a Sunday

on the second Sunday, so they haven't got me today, but they

have gone because youth are meeting.

So if you want to go and join for Christmas games and you're

under 18, if you're a teen, you can go.

So right, let's begin. So my name is Joe.

I am one of the team here at Chelmsford Vineyard.

Welcome. And last week we were gathered

here with all the kids and it was beautifully decorated and it

was we had snowflakes and stars and it was the Carol service and

it was very joyful. The music was amazing and

everyone left feeling high. And I feel like I might bring

you back down to earth with a bump back into Advent, guys.

So we're in Advent. We're in the third Sunday of

Advent. And last week we had a foretaste

of the wonder and joy of Christmas as we celebrated the

birth of Jesus. But now we're going to just take

a moment to pause and come back to Advent.

So 2 weeks before our Carol service, Nikki did introduced us

to the kind of Advent calendar. And if you missed that talk and

you want to catch up, you can find that on our Spotify.

I'd definitely recommend it. But there was a phrase that

Nikki used a couple of weeks ago that has really stayed with me

over the last couple of weeks. And she spoke about Advent as a

time of fasting, fasting before feasting.

I absolutely love this picture. As we prepare for the feast, as

we prepare for Christmas, we sit in a time of fasting.

Now, I don't know if any of you have or do fast as a church.

We had a period of fasting before Easter, didn't we?

This year? And I'd always, I'd always been

a bit unsure how I felt about fasting, but I was like, no,

come on, like, get this done. It was uncomfortable, physically

uncomfortable and actually emotionally uncomfortable.

It pushed me to my limits. I had to work.

I had to be kind to people. I had to focus.

Fasting is not fun, but it's worth it.

And we're in Advent and it's this season of fasting before

the feast. Keep this in mind this morning

because this morning we're we're fasting.

We're going to look to the feast, but we're going to start

with the fast. So last when Nikki introduced

Advent, she said to us that hope is a time, Advent is a time of

hope and hope is an anticipated future that is better than our

present. But let's just stay in the

present. In 2025, the UK Well-being

Report, commissioned by the World Well-being Movement, says

that the proportion of people living below the happiness

poverty line has increased by about 10% compared with last

year, meaning an estimate of an additional 650,000 UK adults are

now living with alarmingly low levels of well-being.

Even more stark is the total number.

Around 7 million adults aged 16 and over across the UK are now

estimated to be living below the happiness poverty line, more

than the entire population of Scotland.

Approximately 7.1% of people in Great Britain experience chronic

loneliness. Almost 2/3 of 16 to 29 year olds

often feel lonely, a trend that's been around since COVID.

65% of adults report feeling lonely often or always or some

of the time, with a further 25% reporting they feel lonely

occasionally. 4667 people were homeless on the streets of

England in autumn 2024, a 20% increase from the previous year.

61 1/2 thousand children are homeless.

That makes me cry. Are homeless in England a 14%

increase in a year? I don't know about you, but

these stats do not make me feel hopeful and with the risk of

bringing the mood down further. Guys, on top of this Libby

mentioned these last week. We can add famine, war, abuse,

illness, death, the list goes on.

The world can feel like a hopeless place.

So how do we navigate this this Advent as we approach Christmas?

When Libby asked me to prepare this talk today, I was praying

about it and God reminded me of a couple of verses from Romans

Romans 8:22–25

chapter 8, verse 22 to 25. So if you've got your Bible, you

can get it out now and and find it.

If you don't have a Bible or if you know somebody who doesn't

who would like one, we have Bibles on the information table.

They're completely free. Please pick one up, give them

away. That's what they're for.

The words will appear on the screen behind me if you haven't

got your Bible with you. So this is Romans 822 to 25.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the

pains of childbirth, right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first few fruits of

the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to

sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope

at all. Who hopes for what they already

have. But if we hope for what we do

not have, we do not yet have. We wait for it patiently so

we're included. We are ourselves.

We are the ones who have the first fruits of the Spirit.

That's us. And it says we groan inwardly as

we wait. There's so much to be unpacked

in this verse, but I'm literally just going to take one bit of it

today to kind of wrap around what I'm saying.

And that is this description of labour used to describe waiting.

I was going to look for one of those, you know, those videos,

if you've seen them on YouTube, where they put the labour things

on the men. And I was going to show that.

And then I was like, I thought there might be a pregnant lady

in the room. So I didn't want to do that.

So I haven't got that. But you can imagine it like you

can imagine labour. I have a couple of stories about

labour which are not too gory, so I'm going to share them with

you. But I was, I was like, God, what

are you trying to say? Like what?

What is this whole kind of groaning and labour?

So for those of you who don't know me, I trained as a nurse

many years ago and I was part of Project 2000 where you did all

placements on all different things.

So I trained as a mental health nurse, but you had to do kind of

general nursing, learning disability and labour ward.

And those of you who've been on a labour ward will appreciate

this. So I was like 1920 years old.

I had no point of reference for labour other than babies were

cute. We didn't have like one born

every minute there. And it was, yeah, no idea what

to expect. So I went onto my labour ward in

my lovely student nurse uniform and it absolutely blew my mind.

The first birth that I witnessed, oh bless, it was a

mother. This was her third labour, so

she was an absolute pro. And there was me, this student

nurse and the midwives come in and out.

So you're just left with this couple and labour.

Anyway, by the time she finally gave birth, I stayed on the

shift because I really wanted to see it.

I was absolutely sobbing. I wasn't a Christian then, but

it was mind blowing and, and it was like, I felt like it was a

miracle happening right in front of me.

It moved me to my soul. Her and her partner thought I

was like totally mad like this student nurse, like I'm so

sorry. But it, it was, it was so

miraculous, it was spiritual and I didn't even know it at the

time. I'm not going to tell you about

the time when I nearly passed out because that's not pleasant.

Anyway, then Fast forward a few years, I'm I've got married and

I'm going to experience labour myself.

So I had my first child. It was amazing, really painful.

Thanks. But my second one is where I

went into labour in the night, but I already had a child so I

was like, oh we need someone to look after the child.

So we have to ring the grandparents who live about an

hour away to come over and look after my youngest, my first,

while I have my second. Unfortunately for me, I have

really quick labours. So by the time they arrived it

was not a pretty sight. My father-in-law nearly was

like, I don't know what to do with her and my my mother-in-law

was like she's just having a baby.

But I did in the end give birth to my son in a car with no pain

relief. It was much fun.

It was very painful, very painful.

But this picture in Romans of the world groaning, experiencing

the pain of Labor as it waits for Jesus to return, is

absolutely spot on. I feel like that labor is

painful and messy and it pushes human resolve to the limit, but

it's all worth it. The gift of life and love.

The result of Labor is, in my opinion, not of this earth.

It is inexplicable, changing us to the depths of our soul.

Let's think about what Nicky told us about last week.

We're in the fast, We're in Advent.

But there's hope, an anticipated future that is better than our

present. Hope in the Bible is not about

wishful thinking or optimism or probability.

It's not about something we can generate for ourselves from

working harder at trying harder. It's not something we can buy

with earthly wealth. Biblical hope is a confident

expectation in the promises of God grounded in His character

and His faithfulness. Unlike A wish or a vague desire,

it is anchored in the certainty that God fulfills what He

proclaims. In Hebrews 11 verse one, it says

faith is the assurance of what we hope for and the certainty of

what we do not see. So the hope that is being spoken

about here and in the Romans passage isn't just hoping that

things will get better in the world.

All of those statistics that I brought you down with at the

beginning, I'm sorry. Hope that we're talking about is

deeply rooted in our faith, which comes from us

understanding who God is and what His promises are.

So as we journey through Advent, dealing with all of our stuff

and the stuff of the world, we need to hold on to God's

promises. Jesus coming into the world set

in motion the redemption of the world.

We are assured of this and we cling on to this hope as we face

each day. The pain we experience in labour

is pain filled with hope. There will be an end to it, The

most wonderful gift of life. This is the promise of

Christmas. This is the hope that we set our

hearts on as we face our current trials and tribulations.

So what if we are struggling with hope this Advent time?

What can we do to build our hope?

A few suggestions from me. Firstly, remind ourselves of all

those who have gone before us. Read the Bible.

The Bible is full of people facing hopeless situations who

by faith persevered and experienced God fulfilling his

promises. Just a few from the Old

Testament that I came up with. Abraham unwavering belief in

God's promise. Even when he was faced with the

possibility of never having children, he still trusted God

and God made it happen. Moses, I mean, he went through

it. If you don't know these stories,

you can find them in the Old Testament.

If you Google it, you'll, they'll come up.

He had, he had doubts, He faced it, faced challenges.

He was daunted and overcome, but he remained hopeful.

He remained hopeful in God's deliverance of the Israelites

from Egypt. Job despite experiencing extreme

suffering and losing everything, he remained hopeful in God's

righteousness and refused to curse him.

Hannah, She was barren, but she continued to go to the temple

and pour out her heart to God, trusting that He would answer

her prayers. David known for faithfulness and

courage, but boy did he face some challenges.

He always put his hope in God. So remind ourselves of those who

have gone before and remind ourselves of when we have put

our hope in God, when we've seen an answer to prayer, when we've

experienced peace in turmoil, provision when we've needed it

most. This time last year me and my

family were we'd just lost my mum.

It was the most awful time, but I can't help but remember.

And we in all the awfulness, there was this overwhelming

peace and hope that we experienced.

We laughed and we cried. We had joy when we felt that

prayers were answered and we felt despair when we felt like

our prayers were unheard. The whole experience was utterly

awful and completely beautiful. Hope so remind ourselves of

those who have come before. Remind ourselves of when we have

put our hope in God. Remind ourselves that we are not

alone. We have each other and we have

the Holy Spirit. When we feel hopeless, we come

together. Other people hope for us.

When we can't do it, when we don't know how to pray, the Holy

Spirit, those groans like when you can't even put it into

words, that is the Holy Spirit being ministering to us,

interceding with us. And the church gathers around

you. Don't they?

Like, I love this guy, these guys, and we're going to pray

later. But if you're feeling hopeless

this morning, get people to gather around you because they

can do it for you. And we patiently endure.

We wait in Advent in the fast. The hope of future redemption

gives us the strength to wait with steadfast insurance.

Advent amplifies the now and the not yet of the Kingdom.

We talk about this in Vineyard quite a lot and it's it's that

time in between. God came, but he has Jesus

hasn't come back yet. So Jesus came to earth, but he

hasn't come back yet. And we sit in this the now and

the not yet. The Kingdom of God is here, but

it's not fully here. Advent amplifies the now and the

not yet of the Kingdom. It increases our joy as we

celebrate God entering our world in the person of Jesus.

But it sharpens our focus on the pain and despair of God's

Kingdom not being fully here. In Advent.

We sit and wait in this tension, fasting before feasting waiting.

I don't know about you guys. I'm not the most patient person

is really hard waiting in the Bible is referred to as like a

theme of active trust and patience.

It's not passive. It's, it's involved spiritual

growth and strength from God. It's an action that you're

doing. You're it's not, yeah, it's not

a passive thing. It builds trust and strength.

When we trust God, even when we're facing difficult

situations, it's building our strength.

It's active perseverance. As I said, it's not a passive

act. It's an active process of

seeking God, which involves holding onto faith and

persevering through challenges. It's about renewing our spirit,

waiting on the Lord. In Isaiah 40, it's likened to

like an eagle soaring, running without becoming weary, walking

without becoming faint. When we wait, the presence of

the God, presence of God is with us.

It's about trusting God's timing, divine timing, trust

God's timing over our own. We don't understand it all.

We don't know the bigger picture, and it's about

embracing the tension. The tension of the now and the

not yet of the Kingdom. The Hebrew word for waiting.

I don't know how you say it really, but cover means to wait,

to look for and to hope. There's it's a sense of like,

there's tension and there's stretching.

It's uncomfortable. It's an expected part of the

process of waiting for God's will to unfold.

So how do we wait? Well, be still and patient.

Trust that the Lord will fight for you, and be patient.

That takes practice. But this Advent, make time for

stillness. Stay focused on the present.

Live out your faith today by loving others and doing what

God's calling you to do. Do something while you're

waiting. You're waiting anyway, so you

may as well get busy doing it. And don't give up.

Perseverance is crucial. Don't ever grow weary in doing

good. Trust that you will reap a

harvest in due time. This Advent, I encourage you to

acknowledge the not yet of the Kingdom, your disappointments,

your pain, your despair, your frustrations, your anxieties,

your unanswered prayers, your grief.

But do so with hope. Jesus is with us in the

suffering. Anticipate a future that is

better than your present. This Advent, I encourage you to

celebrate the now and the not yet of the Kingdom.

The prayers unanswered, the experience.

Sorry, I'm just going to say that again.

This Advent, I encourage you to celebrate the now of the

Kingdom, the prayers answered, the experience of peace and

adversity, comfort for those who mourn, the generous provision of

God, the promises already fulfilled, and the joy of God

with us. This Advent, we sit in the

tension of the now and the not yet holding on to the promises

of God. Jesus will return and make all

things new. So to finish this morning I'm

going to read a passage from Revelation and then we're going

to have a song where you guys are going to be able to just

have a bit of reflection and respond, and then we're going to

have some ministry time. So this Advent we journey

towards the birth of Jesus, knowing that He has overcome and

that we can confidently put our hope in Him.

Revelation 21 says this. Then I saw a new heaven and a

new earth, for the 1st heaven and the first earth had passed

away, and there was no longer any sea.

I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from

heaven for God, prepared as a bride, beautifully dressed for

her husband. And I heard a loud voice from

the throne saying, Look, God's dwelling place is now among the

people, and He will dwell with them.

They will be His people, and God himself will be with them and be

their God. He will wipe every tear from

their eyes. There will be no more death or

mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has

passed away. So this Advent, as we sit in the

fast, we look to the feast Jesus has overcome.

He will make all things new.