Advent - Matthew 1:18-25 and Matthew 2 - Coleton Segars

Thrilled to be here with you all today, thrilled to uh celebrate Advent with all of you and to do it as a church together in a new space for me.

But um, anyways, really grateful.

Um as I said earlier, we're gonna look at um hope this week, peace next week, joy, and then love.

Um and so this week, we're just looking at the Christmas story and how the birth of Jesus came about, um, and then trying to gather hope from that.

Um but I'm gonna read uh chapters uh one, uh a portion of chapter one, and all of chapter two.

And so bear with me, but uh there's a lot in here that uh I believe that we can gather from, and so it's gonna be on the screen there, but it's chapter one, starting in verse 18, all the way to the end of chapter two.

This is how the birth of Jesus, the Messiah, came about.

His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Because Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.

Because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet.

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us.

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him, and took Mary home as his wife, but he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son, and he gave him the name Jesus.

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem and Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?

We saw his star when it rose, and have come to worship him.

When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed in all of Jerusalem with him.

When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them, Where is the Messiah, where the Messiah was to be born?

In Bethlehem and Judea, they replied, For this is what the prophet has written.

But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah, for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out the exact time the star had appeared.

He sent them to Bethlehem and said, Go and search carefully for the child, and as soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go to worship him.

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen, when it rose, went ahead of them, until it stopped over the place where the child was.

And when they saw the star, they were overjoyed.

On coming to the house they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him.

Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream.

Get up, he said, take the child and his mother, and escape to Egypt.

Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.

And so he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.

And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet, out of Egypt I called my son.

And when Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity, who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time that he had learned from the Magi.

Then what was said through the Prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled.

A voice is heard in Rama weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because there are no more.

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead.

And so he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.

But when he had heard that Archileus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.

And having been worn in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth.

So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets that he would be called a Nazarene.

This is the word of the Lord.

I know it was a lot, but um there's a lot in there that I want to unpack.

But um before we get into it, Victor Frankel wrote this book called Man's Search for Meaning, and um he's a survivor of World War II concentration camps, and wrote this book, and he talks about the importance of hope and the necessity of it and the power of it.

And he talks about it in terms of a fellow prisoner of his that he calls F.

That's all we get in the book, is the the first letter of the man's name.

But this is what he says about hope and the power of it.

He says, one of my fellow prisoners, F, confided in me one day.

He says, I would like to tell you something, Dr.

Frankel.

I've had a strange dream.

A voice told me that I could wish for something, that I should only say what I wanted to know, and all my questions would be answered.

I asked to know when the war would be over for me.

I wanted to know when uh when we, when our camp would be liberated and our sufferings would come to an end.

And what did the dream voice answer?

I asked.

March 30th, he whispered, and it was today, the beginning of March.

He says, When F told me about his dream, he was still full of hope, convinced that the voice of his dream would be right, that as the promised day drew near, the war news which reached our camp made it appear very unlikely that we would be free on March 30th.

And on March 29th, F suddenly became ill.

And on March 30th, the day his prophecy had told him that the war and suffering would be over for him, he became delirious and lost consciousness.

On March 31st, he was dead.

To all the outward appearances, he had died of typhus.

But those who know how close the connection between the state of mind of a man and the state of immunity of the human body will understand that the sudden loss of hope can have a deadly effect.

The ultimate cause of my friend's death was that the expected liberation did not come, and he was severely disappointed.

His faith or hope for the future and his will to live had become paralyzed, and thus the voice of his dream was right after all.

Now, happy Christmas, Merry Christmas story.

That's probably not the hope that you're looking for.

I totally get it.

But I do think that there's a space in here where it really helps us understand that hope is this powerful thing.

And so when we light a candle of hope, or when we um hear like a weary world rejoices and yonder breaks, you know, all these different things.

Like, there's this space in Christianity as followers of Jesus where the Lord knew how important and vital and powerful hope was.

And so it's supposed to be this defining marker of the Christian.

Like we're supposed to walk into hope in the midst of some of the deepest, darkest sufferings in our lives, that hope is still supposed to be this known experience that we have, not just when times are great, but when times are really difficult and things are going on in our lives.

And so I do think that this story, while it's a downer, uh, does display this powerful, powerful nature of hope.

And it makes sense why the Lord wanted us to actually experience some of those things.

And so what I want to do today is look at this passage and look at three reasons why I believe we should have hope in our lives.

And what I don't want to do is be like, here's three reasons to be optimistic.

Because optimism and hope are completely different things.

And Frankel goes on to talk about that where he's like, the optimists died too.

Those that were just like, I'll just, I think it's gonna be Christmas, and I think it'll be Easter, and then we'll be out of here.

I think it'll be my birthday.

I just have a feeling about this.

And they were so optimistic, but they weren't hope-filled.

And so, because of their optimist, when their optimism wasn't met with, oh, this actually happened for me, they died in their optimism not having been fulfilled.

And so he explains the difference, but like hope is something that's actually anchored in something else.

It's not this optimistic thought that we throw up, and I don't want to give that to you guys either.

I want us to actually have hope.

Hope is something that's supposed to be anchored for the Christian, for us as followers of Jesus.

I like John Mark Comer's uh definition of hope.

He says, for the follower of Jesus, hope is the confident expectation of coming good based on the person and promises of God.

Our hope has an anchor that's not just nice thoughts and optimism.

It is like the anchor of it is the person and the promises, not just the person, but the person and the promises, and not just the promises, but the person himself.

And if Jesus has undergone and gone through death and come out victorious, then he lives to give us renewed hope and consistent hope.

And because he lives, our hope always lives.

Because you can, if you can, if somebody can offer you hope, but then you kill that person, and then your hope goes with that person's death.

But if that person comes back from the grave and says, I offered you hope, you killed me, I came back and I live, I'm still able to give you now even a greater hope than what existed before.

And so for us, we have this space in our lives where we're supposed to have this confident expectation in our lives, not to be optimistic, but a confident space in our lives with expectation of coming good based on who Jesus is, the person of Jesus, and the promises of God.

And so, three reasons from this passage that I believe that our hope should be renewed as we go through this season today.

The first is what you see in this passage is God always, always, eventually, which is a key word, always, eventually keeps his promises.

Always, eventually, he keeps his promises.

So there are five prophetic promises in here that are drawn out in the story.

Um and so go to this right here, the five prophetic promises of God.

Matthew 1.23 is based on Isaiah 7, 14.

Eventually, 700 years later, okay?

I I don't want, I don't want to wait 700 years for like the promises to happen, but that's what it was.

700 years later, he was he came through on his problem.

Eventually it happened, uh, his promise.

Matthew 2, 6, based on Micah 5, 696 years from the given, the give of the promise to the fulfillment of the promise.

Matthew 2, 15, Hosea 11, 1, it's somewhere in between 740, 780.

Who's counting?

Uh Matthew 2, 18, Jeremiah 31, 15, it took 620 years for that promise to be fulfilled, Matthew 2, 23, Isaiah 53, 3, uh took 700 years again, because Isaiah wrote around somewhere in that particular space.

The point of this is that while it took a bit, he did eventually keep his promise.

What he promised is something that he ultimately did fulfill.

And I think for if you if you notice in the text, because it took so long for the promises to come to fruition, there are people here that know the promises.

Like he goes to the chief priests and the and the scribes, and it's like, when or where is the Messiah supposed to be born?

And they know the answer.

Like we've we've known the answer for 700 years.

He's supposed to be born in Bethlehem, but they're not expecting it to happen.

Like they know it in their brain.

We've been training this since we were kids.

But because it had taken so long for the promise to actually come to fruition, they have basically become like we do with the scriptures a little bit, and it's it's super easy to become like, well, those are just nice sayings at one point in time, they meant a lot more, but they don't really mean anything for me today.

They're just sayings from a long time ago that used to matter, but realistically, 2,000 years some odd later, like it doesn't really matter for us anymore.

And I think that's where they get, because they're like, we know the answer, we're just not expecting some of those things.

And again, I think this is our struggle as well.

We start wondering, like, is he really going to do what he said?

And so if we read the promises of God for us today, and it's taken so long for those things to happen, and we read the scriptures, it's so easy to go, well, that was 2,000 years ago.

I don't know if it's actually something for me today.

But the idea is, and what's presented here, is like it's coming.

Like the promise will be fulfilled.

These are things that he's promised us that he will always eventually get to, and the promises of God for us in the scriptures are supposed to be a thing that stirs our hope up.

Charles Spurgeon has this really long quote that I'm gonna read to you, um, that is beautiful when it talks about hope.

But this is what he says, or excuse me, about the promises of God.

He says, the promises of God, we should all have this view of the promises of God.

The promises of God are to the believer an inexhaustible mine of wealth.

Happy is it for them who know how to search out and enrich themselves with their treasures.

The promises are to them an armory containing all manner of offensive and defensive weapons.

They are to the believer a surgery in which he will find all manner of strength and blessed elixir.

I want some blessed elixir.

They shall find in the promises an ointment for every wound, a remedy for every faintness and disease.

Blessed is he who is well skilled in heavenly pharmacy and knows how to lay hold on the healing virtues of the promises of God.

The promises are to the Christian a storehouse of food.

Blessed is he who can take the five barley loaves and fishes of a promise and break them till his five thousand needs shall all be supplied.

The promises are to are the title deed of his heavenly estate.

Happy is the one as is he who knows how to read them well and call them all his own.

Oh, how unutterably rich are the promises of our faithful God, how exceedingly great and precious are the promises of God.

See then how needful it is that you and I should know the height and depth and length and breadth of the unsearchable riches of Christ which are stored up in his promises.

Pretty strong view of the promises of God.

Because for him, he's like, whatever you face, go to the scriptures, find something that's promised to you, and then just apply that to your life.

And I think we because it takes a long time, it doesn't happen like social media does, where you're just able to go and have your you know your needs met really quickly, where you can buy now with one click on Amazon and all these, because it doesn't happen like that, we get in this space and we start thinking, I don't know if this is actually real anymore.

I don't know if this is actually something that he has for me.

And it's like he always, eventually, will do what he's promised to do.

And so what he has promised to you is so that you can go into those scriptures, find the promise that meets the need that you have, so that hope is resterred in your life again, so that you can actually experience some of those things.

One of the reasons that we can have hope is because he always, eventually, keeps his promises.

And so, based on that, I just wanted to look at a couple of things that we could do and probably need to just practice in our own minds and in our own lives, based on what's promised to us in the scriptures, so that we experience the fullness of what's available to us.

Because to me, if we don't press into the promises believing them, something's out there that's available to us that we'll just never walk into.

It's like the people of Israel.

The promised land was promised.

It was actually like all you gotta do is go in.

Just go into the promised land.

But they didn't believe the promise.

The land still existed, the ability to take it was still for them to have, and Israel could have just walked in because it was promised to them and to be given to them.

And because they didn't believe the promise, they didn't take him up on the promise and they missed out on what was actually promised.

And I think that will happen to us if we read the scriptures and don't see them as things that like these are living and active now, these things are for us.

Take these promises, use them, and hold him accountable to those things.

John Wesley says we don't have this quote, uh, but uh he says that the best thing to pray to God are the things that he has promised to you.

And he's like, and just take him to court on them and be like, I didn't say it, you said it.

And so you said that you should do this, I'm just taking you up.

You said you're a man of your word, a god of your word, and I'm just holding you accountable to what you said.

And the idea is that like that's what we're supposed to be able to look at the scriptures and argue our case based on you said, for your name's sake, that you would do these things.

And what he says is like, you have promised me good, Lord, do me good in this space.

And so he just does that.

And I think for us as well, there's a space in there where we need to take the promises and apply them to our lives and allow them to be a space of hope.

So, one thing that we need to do based on the promises of God is we need to get closer to Jesus.

Look at this, uh, the things that that are true of uh the promises of getting closer to Jesus.

He says, I have come to give life and life to the full.

And so the idea is get close to the if you're looking for life in the life that you're longing for, it's found in him.

And so get closer to him because he has come to give life and life to the full.

And I know some people struggle with like, I think Jesus has come to make my life worse.

And it's like, it's not.

His promise to you is to bring life and life to the full.

That's what he wants to give you.

Psalm 16, in his presence is fullness of joy.

If you're lacking joy, it is in his presence where fullness of joy lives.

It's not out someplace else.

It's not in sin, it's in his presence.

Come to me and I will give you rest.

Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.

These things exist for us so that we experience the life that we're actually longing for and looking for in other things.

He's like, they're with me.

I've promised them to you.

They're just with me.

And so draw close to me, and it's easy to draw close to me.

Draw close to me, and I will draw close to you.

And these things that you're longing for and searching for in other spaces and can't find, you'll find those things with me.

Draw close to him.

Those are the promises.

Uh, we need to do what he says.

Not so that he loves us more, but so that we experience what he has for us.

Matthew 7, um, 24 through 27, he says, Everyone who hears these words of mine, this is Jesus, and puts them into practice.

Notice the difference.

He hears them and then puts them into his life into practice, is like a wise man who built his house on a rock.

The rain came, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house, but it did not fall because it had its foundation on the rock.

But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.

The rain came, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house, and it fell with a great crash.

And the idea is like there's something powerful.

And listening to the promise is if you put them into practice, it doesn't, it is not like this happy, go-lucky life where you'll never experience any tragedy or suffering, anything like that.

That's not what he's saying.

The rains still come for each person.

One puts it into practice and the rains and the winds and all the things come.

One of them doesn't.

It's just one stands and one crashes with a great fall.

And he's like, I want you to be people who actually, not put my word into practice and then I'll love you more.

Put my word into practice because it's foundational for you that holds you steady in the midst of some of the things that you're dealing with.

And so we need to do what he says.

He rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Hebrews 11, 6.

Rewards those who earnestly seek him.

Many times when I talk to people, they're like, Well, salvation is free.

You can't earn anything.

And I'm like, absolutely, we cannot earn salvation.

Salvation is a gift.

You can't earn a gift.

Um, but there are rewards available to those who chase after them and believe the promises.

And so for me, I'll uh if I ever really want something in prayer, and this has happened 100% of the time, if I ever really want it, like I'm confused about something or trying to answer a question or something like that.

Um, I believe this passage, he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

And so I'll wake up at 3 a.m.

and pray because to me, 3 a.m.

is when everyone should be asleep.

You should not be awake at 3 a.m.

It is like the perfect, like if you're up at 2 30, it's like you had a late night.

If you're up at 3:30 or 4, like Larry, you woke up early to seek the Lord.

If you're up at 3, there's something wrong.

There's no, this is this should not be where the and so for me, I'm like, I want, I definitely want to hit my peak sleep at 3 o'clock.

And so I'm like trying to seek the Lord earnestly in that space.

And there have been moments where I like I the two houses ago that we we lived in, I was on my back porch praying at 3 a.m., asking about what I should do on certain situations, and like it was such a rich time for me when the Lord really did speak into my life and told me, you need to go and do this, and it shaped the last six years of my life.

It did those things.

When we were discussing and praying through coming here, same thing, asking the Lord, give us wisdom and signs and something.

I just want to know because I don't want to do something outside of your will.

And so waking up at 3 a.m.

earnestly seeking him, this is true.

Whatever that looks like for you, maybe it maybe it's fasting, maybe it's I don't know what it is, but he does this.

Um, the wages of sin is death.

We need to believe that.

We do we I think sometimes we can think that like the promise of the wages of sin is death.

We can think that it's like sin is bad, Jesus' way is better, but and sin is bad.

And it's like, no, no, no.

You can't find life in sin.

There's nothing.

So anything that you do in fear, I'm doing this out of fear, and you think I'm gonna do this out of fear and it's gonna do something good for me, it just can't do anything good for you.

Sin can never repay you in life.

It just can't do that.

It's like the when Mary and them are at the tomb of Jesus and the angel's like, why are you looking for the living among the dead?

Like, there's sin is death, and it cannot pay you in good things.

And I think sometimes it's like, well, I do a little bit of sin and I do a little bit of righteous stuff, and this isn't so bad because it's not really affecting anything.

It's like, no, one day, eventually, this thing will pay you in death.

And he's trying to tell you the promise is righteousness leads to life and sin leads to death.

So don't do that.

Not like don't do that because I said so.

Don't do that because I'm trying to protect you from something that's actually going to break something in your life and to bring destruction into your life.

And it's not maybe not physical death, like you did that and you physically died, but it's it's the death of something.

The death of hope, the death of joy, the death of peace, the death of a relationship, the death of something that could have been life.

And so he's telling us that, and he's saying, this is a promise.

The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

Submit yourselves to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

What a gift that all we have to do is resist.

We don't have to fight.

We just like say, no, thank you, I'm good.

And that no thank you is plenty.

And he's like, Well, I gotta go.

Um, confess your sins and pray for one another, and you will be healed.

I've done this so many times and experienced sins that I could not break through on and break free from, confessing those things to a brother or to my wife and somebody and saying those things, like, please pray for me, and I'm bringing this stuff out into the light.

Like it, there's power there.

And I think what he's offering to us in the promises, like, this stuff is real.

Take these things for what they are.

They're actual promises that he will fulfill in your life.

These are things that he has not just promised and like, and then they're good thoughts.

Like, this is something that can shape and change your life.

I'm not lying.

I promise you these things are real.

And I think that's the truth.

Uh, when we go through, uh, what else what else we got?

We got a couple more.

We need to trust him.

Uh, his promises, uh, those who trust in the Lord will never be put to shame.

The idea is uh if you trust in the Lord, you will never be in a space ever where uh you'll you'll go, I trusted in him too much.

You'll get to the end of your life and never go, I think I trusted God too much with my life.

You'll never do that.

We'll always do it the other way.

God works all things to good to those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

I used to hate that verse because I grew up in a divorced family, and when I heard that verse for the first time, I was like, there's no way anything good can come from this divorce.

Like it defes.

Find my life and a large part of my life.

But then what I found is like over the 17 years, from when I was three until I was 20, 17 years, I'd seen God do small things throughout.

But then at age 20, I my mom wound up here in Tennessee, and I met Rainey here in Tennessee.

And there's without the divorce, I never would have met her.

And then we got, you know, took her three years to fall in love with me, which makes sense.

She eventually fell in love with me, and now we're 12 years in, we got a child, and all these different things.

And like I have watched him take a horrible situation that for 17 years I hated, and do something good out of a situation that you're like, how in the world could anything good come out of this?

And I just watched him be faithful to his promise.

I work all things to good.

To those who love me are called according to my purpose.

I can take the most horrible things and work good things out of those things.

Doesn't mean divorce is good, so go do it.

It doesn't mean that.

It just means that redemption is his thing.

He specializes in it.

His default setting is repairing brokenness.

Like that's his default.

And so for us in our lives, what we've experienced is like just him working in a situation and bringing good out of a situation that I thought there's just no way that he could ever do anything good out of that.

And some of y'all are walking through that.

Like, how could he possibly do something good?

And it can even sound trite to say, hey, you know, um he works all things to good to those who love him recording.

It could sound like, hey man, don't say that, but I have watched it happen in a horrible situation in my life, and I've watched him bring good out of these things.

We need to trust him.

We need to look to him for what we need.

He says, My grace is sufficient for you if you're walking through suffering.

Nothing else is sufficient for you.

My grace is sufficient for you.

Be anxious for nothing, and the uh the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your heart in Christ Jesus.

The eyes of the Lord range throughout the earth to show himself strong on behalf of those who are.

That's one of my favorite verses.

He's looking to show himself strong in your life in some way and capacity.

There's a promise for us, as like, oh, so I just need to be committed to you because you're searching the earth for someone to do something strong in their lives.

And it's a promise for us to give us hope in the midst of these things.

And so the point of this is to, is, is not just to walk through every single promise of God, although I have more, but we just need to move on.

There's tons.

And they're written down for us to be a space of encouragement and hope and joy and life for us, not to be like this antiquated textbook that we look at and go, like, ah, the Bible's okay, but like search them, devour it, find them, and then base your life on those promises, because he will do it eventually.

He will complete every single promise that he has for you.

He will do those things because he's promised it and eventually he will do it.

No one would have based their bet and placed their bet on a baby outliving a ruler like Herod.

If you were a betting person back in the day and they're like, who you gonna put your money on?

Who's gonna stay alive longer?

A ruler of a nation who has decided to kill a baby or the baby?

Like everybody puts their money on the ruler.

Like everybody's like, oh yeah, of course the ruler is gonna a ruler with an army is gonna beat one baby.

But Herod dies in chapter two, and Jesus' story is just beginning because God is faithful to his promise.

Even though it doesn't look like this seems impossible, how could he ever fulfill this promise?

The whole nation is turned against this estranged couple from their community and this one child.

It's like, how is it possible?

Because he's faithful to his promise.

And so, regardless of how impossible it seems, this is what he does.

He keeps his promises all the time.

It should be a source of hope for us.

Find them, base your life on them, lean on them, and allow them to be a space where hope actually wells up in you.

That was a long point.

That's my longest point, I promise.

They get shorter as the time goes on.

All right, point number two.

Point number two, the reason we can have hope based on this passage is hardship and difficulties always follow the people who follow God.

It does not sound like a hopeful space, but hardship and difficulties always follow the people who follow God.

Again, it doesn't sound hopeful, but when you and I walk through difficulty or we walk through struggles and stuff like that, it's super easy for both of us, all of us, to look at that and go, I must be outside of God's will.

Like some I something is wrong that's happening.

I must be outside of God's will.

I must have been doing something wrong.

Maybe there's sin in my life, and maybe there is at certain times.

Maybe I'm doing something wrong.

Maybe God has just forgotten me.

Maybe none of this is real.

It's just super easy to start walking through difficulty and a relationship ends, and then this happens and someone dies, or you didn't get that promotion, or this thing, and it's like all of a sudden you start walking through hardship and you begin believing like maybe the problem is me.

But I think right here, what you see in this passage is that hardship and difficulties follow Mary and Joseph, and they're right smack dab in the center of God, what he's trying to do.

And so if you just look at some of the things that they're dealing with, Mary is seen as a harlot, strong start, uh, likely shunned from her community from being pregnant out of wedlock.

Joseph wonders that his fiance might be unfaithful to him and is about to divorce her.

The ruler Herod is trying to kill their children.

They have to leave everything they know and move to Egypt, away from all their family, and then when they come back, they had to leave, uh, live in a different region than the rest of their family because of the threat of Herod's son.

Tons of opposition, tons of hardship, tons of struggle and suffering, and yet they're right in the middle of what God has called them to and doing what he wants them to do.

And I think there's this space where they had to wonder, like we do, like we heard him correctly, right?

Like the angel, what it said, like we're doing the right thing.

Like, certainly, certainly let's run, let's check our stories.

Like, why is this so difficult if we're doing the right thing?

Why is it so difficult if we're being obedient?

I don't understand that.

And I have to imagine that they walked through that to some extent because they're normal humans, but it's important to see that the evidence, or excuse me, the problems that they were dealing with was evidence not that they were doing the wrong thing.

It was actually evidence of the fact that they were doing the right thing.

They were trying to extend God's kingdom and be a part of this thing that God's trying to do in the world, and they were just experiencing attack from an opposition that doesn't want to see those things happen.

And that's their experience.

The evidence actually points to you're doing something right.

It's just that there's a real enemy out there that doesn't want to see these things happen, doesn't want God to extend his kingdom, he doesn't want God to be this king of the Jews, and he doesn't want that.

And so that's what they're experiencing.

The hardship were actually evidence that they were doing something right, evidence that the enemy was trying to throw things at us.

And I think the same is true for us.

When we're following Jesus, hardship, struggle, all those things, it means not necessarily, and again, sometimes we can bring this stuff on ourselves, but many times when we're we're trying to be obedient, we have this new passion to begin following Jesus.

Hardship and struggle and suffering and attacks, that's exactly what they are.

It is the enemy trying to thwart you and thwart the plan that God has for your life and all those things.

Jesus says this would happen.

He was like, hey, when when when you begin to, what God begins to grow something in you and to do something in you, you should expect that the enemy will come along and throw the cares of the world into your life.

Because what he's trying to do is he's trying to distract you, discourage you, crush those things, that new growth that's happened in your life.

He's putting that hardship and those cares of the world in your life so that the bond between you and God ultimately snaps because it's pretty fragile right now.

And maybe I can just get them to turn from this altogether.

What Paul says is like, this is the way that we're gonna struggle.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood in Ephesians 6.

Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers and against authorities and against the powers of this dark world, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

And I realize in 2023 to talk about spiritual forces and rulers of the air and all those things, it's like, come on.

But if you don't have a theology of spiritual attack, then you're not actually going to ever praise Jesus for his victory over the rulers and spiritual enemies that you face, and you're never actually going to lean on him for the for the weight that you the things that you actually need, because you'll experience spiritual attack, and you'll be like, oh, it's just my mother-in-law, she's just a jerk.

Like, no, it might be, I mean, maybe.

Uh, but it's also likely that your boss isn't the worst person in the world.

There is a worst person in the world.

He's called the enemy, and he's actually against Christians, and he wants those things to experience.

And if you have no theology for the devil, if you have no theology for demonic powers and those things, then you'll make other people the devil, and you'll make other people demonic powers and you'll call them the enemy versus actually dealing with the enemy that's real in itself.

Your addiction does not come from just something that's like, I'm just, I'm just rewired wrong way, although that might be a piece of it.

But it comes from a space where there's an attack happening in your life from an outside source that you can't see, that you do have power to fight, but it that power doesn't come from you, it comes from him.

And so if we don't have that, if we don't understand this or believe that Paul's saying, like, hey, when you experience hardship, the likelihood is that it's coming from a space of spiritual attack because what the enemy is trying to do is trying to crush the growth that Jesus actually wants to do in your life.

When you get closer to Jesus and set out to follow him with new passion, you will experience spiritual attack.

Read the gospels.

When the demons get closer to Jesus, they don't get quieter.

They get louder, they get more violent, they convulse more, they shriek louder, all these, they get more wild and aggressive.

And they don't do that because they're like, I'm gonna win.

They're afraid that they're about to lose.

And so they get louder as this one last show of intimidation, trying to intimidate Jesus, which is dumb, but they try and intimidate Jesus, and then it's like, you have to go, get out.

But right when they get closer to Jesus, and I think that's so true for us, we get close to Jesus, we have new passion to follow him, new passion to read our Bibles, new passion to pray.

And then all of a sudden the attacks start coming harder, and it's like, is this all fake?

Like, God, I'm trying to do something good here.

I'm trying to do something nice here.

I I came to the house to forgive this person or to say that I was sorry, and then when I got there, it was just just chaos place.

I'm like, I'm trying to do something good.

What is why is this more difficult?

It's like, because there's an enemy that's trying to attack.

These things are real for you, and these things are real for us.

So in my experience, I have seen this happen many, many times.

Uh just people that set out to follow Jesus, and then like, I'm I want to become a Christian, and then their spouse leaves them.

I've had an experience of talking to somebody like, like, you want to follow Jesus, that's so great, and then all of a sudden your spouse leaves you.

Uh I've talked to people who start going to church and they're so excited, and then immediately they lose their job, and it's like, I just started going to church, and somehow they correlate the things, and it's like, God must hate me, or maybe this isn't right, and it's like, no, man, you started doing something good and now you're being attacked for that.

Wanted to go to church, wanted to do this, and then their car breaks down and they have all these issues.

I've experienced people talking to me about stuff like that.

I we Rainey and I have a couple uh friends that they began reading their, uh one of them began reading their Bible, but then they began having more and more fights in their relationship, and they blamed it on the Bible reading.

And so it was like, you know what's wrong?

You're reading the Bible.

We got to get that junk out of here.

And so then they did because they started fighting more, and it's like, hang in there.

Like there's something here.

People showing up in the prayer room, either at our church or the church in the past, and then going home with what they've experienced and wanting to share that, and then walking into a space of chaos, and then the joy that they left the prayer room with and the encounter of Jesus, having that thing crushed among them because they didn't get to share it, because something else was happening at the house.

I've talked to people who have gone on mission trips and served the poor and just come back with this newfound love for like, I don't need all my stuff, and then their house is broken into, and it shapes like, why would God allow my house to be broken into when I'm serving him over here?

And it's like because they're spiritual attack.

I've had students of mine make decisions to follow Jesus at past churches and then come home to find that their parents are sitting them down to say, hey, we're getting a divorce.

And then all the joy they came home with is just crushed out of there.

I had one student that was battling drug addiction and um this is a couple years ago, and um went on this retreat and it was awesome.

And Andrew Banker, he's not in here right now, but he was there.

And uh, I mean, just comes to faith and this repents of that, confesses the addiction to us and wants to get help, and then is like, I'm just feeling like the Lord is calling me into ministry and I'm gonna do what you guys are doing, I'm gonna serve him, all this stuff, and I'm gonna go home, I'm gonna confess my addiction to my parents, I'm gonna get rid of all the drugs that are in my room, all this stuff.

Just amazing, amazing time.

Gets home.

His parents had searched his room already, found the drugs, and showed them to him, and he was like, actually, that's what I want to talk to you about.

I God has met me, He's changed my life, I don't want to do that stuff anymore.

But because it happened in that way, they were like, You just, you're just saying all those things.

You're just lying to us.

That didn't, you didn't actually meet God, you're not actually sorry, you just you're just sorry, you got caught.

And so everything that had happened in his life on that trip was just sucked out of his uh the joy, and all of it was gone, and now he has battled addiction to this day because there's this one experience where you met with God, but then there's this thing, and it was like, dude, you're just attack is real, and I think we experience those things and we can think maybe God's not for me anymore, maybe this isn't real, maybe I need to do something else.

And it's like, no.

Have hope.

The fact that you're experiencing spiritual attack when you're choosing to follow Jesus, the fact that you're doing that means that you're doing something right.

It means that you're getting closer to him and the attack is being ramped up.

And so you can have hope in the midst of that.

It also means, and you can also take hope in the fact that, like, when you're being attacked, God is very, very close to you.

He's not distant from you in these spaces.

Do you see that here in the text?

Like, they're attacked all the time, and yet God is visiting them in spaces that he doesn't visit other people, and he hasn't done so in 400 years, but he's visiting them with dreams and all these things to protect them.

He is super, super near to those who are being attacked by the enemy.

And you see that all throughout the scriptures.

You see it with Daniel and the lions in Shadrach, Meshach, and Nabenigo, where they're tossed into the furnace and the fourth man in the fire is there with them.

Like God draws close when we are attacked.

He draws close when we're walking through those things.

And so we can have hope, even in the midst of difficulty and suffering, mainly because we know, like, I'm pissing off the- I'm sorry, maybe I shouldn't say that.

I'm making mad the enemy.

Um we'll get to know each other better.

I say worse stuff than that.

Um, but like I'm making the enemy angry.

I'm doing something that's actually affecting kingdom work, bigger things, and he is mad and he doesn't want to lose ground.

But in the midst of that, when you're experiencing that, the Lord is not distant or apart from you, he is very close, and he will guide you, he will carry you, and he will actually sustain you in the midst of those things.

Sorry I said pissed off.

Okay.

Third, oh, C.S.

Lewis says this really great thing: enemy occupied territory.

Enemy occupied territory.

That is what this world is.

We got to keep that in mind.

You gotta have that in your in your brains, like we are in a space where we are just walking through enemy-occupied territory.

And we invited it in back in the garden.

We gave the keys to the to the enemy, and Jesus has come to gather those back, and now he says all authority in heaven on earth has been given to him.

And so now we get to move in that authority.

And so, enemy-occupied territory, you need to know you will be attacked for following Jesus, not by the government.

I mean, maybe, but more than anything, it will be from a space that's not just people.

It'll be something beyond that that's trying to snap something, your connection between you and the Lord, and trying to break what he's trying to do in your life.

All right, last point.

The third reason we can have hope is that opposition does not thwart what God plans.

It advances what God plans.

Opposition does not thwart God's plans, it advances God's plans.

And you see that in this text.

It's this really beautiful thing that the opposition that they face does not get in the way or hinder what God is trying to do.

It actually advances, God uses that to advance what he's trying to do.

And so you get to this space where Herod wants to kill all the babies, and God needs his son to go to Egypt.

And so Herod decides, I'm gonna kill all the babies, and that will that will hinder what God is going to do.

I don't want him to do that, but he doesn't do that.

Herod said, I'm gonna search for the child and kill him.

So they got up, took the child to Egypt, and thus fulfill what the Lord said through the prophet, out of Egypt, I have called my son.

He thought he was hindering what God was trying to do, and he was actually helping fulfill what God was trying to do.

The opposition isn't something that hinders what God is gonna do in your life.

It actually is this space where it's like he can use that too to accomplish exactly what he wants to do because he cannot be stopped.

One author I read says that even when he lo when it looks like he's losing, he's winning.

Even when it looks like he's losing, he's winning.

And there's that's such a beautiful idea because like we can see opposition, we can see those things and and be like, is this gonna hinder what God wants to do in my life?

No, he will only use that to forward and to advance what he actually longs to do and what he promises to do, and he does that here.

I've seen this happen in a couple of ways in my in my life or just dealing with people, especially in ministry.

But people have uh gone through suffering, and I thought it would be a space where there's no way they'll ever believe in God anymore.

Like they've dealt with too too much difficulty, too much suffering.

And actually, what it did was in the midst of it, it was like the enemy was trying to sh like get them to like throw storms at them so that they would jump ship, and actually, what it led them to do is actually just cling to the ship a little harder.

And so they became more and more resilient and more and more faithful.

And my sister is a perfect example of that when she lost her husband and then she lost her son.

And I was like, How in the world dealing with that kind of suffering?

Is she ever gonna believe that there's a God who loves her and wants to do good things for her?

And she, I mean, and and yet what has happened is the exact opposite of what I thought of.

And what the enemy meant in her life to be opposition to drive her away, has been a thing that's actually been used to advance the kingdom in her life and to advance her faith with the Lord.

And it's been this amazing thing.

And then her story to run and tell other people of what um the hope that she's experienced even after such tragedy and such loss has stirred faith and hope in the midst of other people and what the enemy meant for evil.

He has purposed for good, and he did, he has done that in her life.

I've watched other people battle through addiction and difficulties and just living very sinfully, and then coming to faith in the midst of that, and then being able to share their testimony of how God transformed their lives and their heart, and like they're able to share their story, and their testimony breaks into people's lives that my sermons never will.

But because they lived a certain way and walked through all this sinful stuff, and then they're able to testify to the goodness of God, even in the love that He has for them, even though He's done or she's done all this terrible stuff.

It's just the testimony itself has been this space where it's like the enemy thought, I'm just gonna riddle them with sin, and they'll be broken in shame and guilt-ridden the rest of their lives.

And actually, it turned into this beautiful testimony that shapes other people's lives and breaks into people's lives, and other people come to faith in Jesus because they're hearing her story.

And then I've also seen the the last church I was at, there was this kid that um his dad got cancer and passed away.

Um, and so when when the dad got cancer, um, the kid was like, I'm done with church, like I'm just completely done with this.

I don't want anything to do with it.

It's not real.

If my dad can get cancer and leave me, then there's no way there's a good God.

Um but then he watched his dad suffer through cancer and like go through it and stay faithful uh to Jesus and to talk about Jesus and to grow in his love for Jesus, even in the midst of this whole thing.

And then slowly over time just shifted his son's heart.

And his son, who was someone who was who was turning away from Jesus completely, ultimately and and this process became someone who was like, I I believe that Jesus is who he says he is, because I watched the way my dad suffered and I watched the way that he went through life.

And this thing that the broken world that the enemy meant for evil is ultimately turned for good.

And I think that's consistent and it's true and it's available always.

And you see it in this text.

And the most important way that we see it is in the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus.

They thought they were winning.

They thought we're killing God Himself, we're winning.

And it's like you're you're killing him to fulfill his purpose so that everyone can be called sons and daughters of God.

You're actually doing a thing that you think is horrible, but I'm using it for my glory and for my good.

This is actually accomplishing my plan.

There's this uh Scottish preacher that has this amazing quote about the the life of Jesus and the death of Jesus, um, about this idea that God took the opposition and used it for good.

This is what he says.

He says, the very triumphs, and he uses it in quotes, the very triumphs of his foes, he used for their defeat.

He compelled their dark achievements to serve his end, not theirs.

They nailed him to the tree, not knowing that by that very act they were bringing the world to his feet.

They gave him a cross.

Woo, it's hard to read this without crying.

Sorry, I cry about most things, but they gave him a cross, not guessing that he would make it a throne.

They flung him outside the gates to die, not knowing that in that very moment they were lifting up all the gates of the universe to let the King of Glory come in.

They thought to destroy his doctrines, not understanding that what they were doing was implanting them imperishably in the hearts of the of men, the very name that they intended to destroy.

They thought they had defeated God with his back to the wall, pinned and helpless and defeated.

They did not know that it was God Himself who had tracked them down.

He did not conquer in spite of the dark mystery of evil.

He conquered through it.

That's gold.

Like that is, I mean, to me, like that that the enemy was sitting there watching the cross happen and watching it be like, I we got him, we got him.

And he's like, I brought you here.

This is my thing.

And I this will be go down in history as the most beautiful thing that's ever taken place is me, God himself, dying for sinners so that sinners can live.

You think you're killing me, you're actually advancing my kingdom.

Like there's just nothing like him, no one can defeat him, no rival, no equal, nothing.

And so for us, why can we have hope?

Because even the opposition that comes at us isn't something that can destroy us.

It's something that actually that he will use to further what he longs to do in our lives and what he promises to do will not be thwarted and it cannot be stopped.

And so, for you, for me, why can we have hope?

We can have hope because his promises are sure.

Find them, lean on them, take them, make them be what you depend on because he will not fail in doing those things.

And then, secondly, you will experience spiritual attack.

It will not hinder what he wants to do in your life, it will help advance it.

And when you are experiencing spiritual attack in the midst of this world, in the midst of following Jesus and all those different things, know that it's because you are actually drawing closer to Jesus and not doing something wrong.

And I think for us, when we see this in this text, this is a space where we can find incredible hope.

Because our hope is secure, because Jesus can't even die correctly.

Like, you know, sorry, that was supposed to be a joke.

It's fine, we'll we'll learn it.

But I think it's a really beautiful thing for us to consider that if he can't, even in his death, if he finds this space where actually grateful you brought me here, grateful that you did this thing to me, now I can enter into my glory, and now other people can experience my life because I died so that they didn't have to experience this type of death.

And so for us, we have that hope as well.

And so my encouragement to you is to find some promises, depend on them.

They're not just fun things to say, they're not just things to tack on a coffee mug and be like, for I know the plans, not that.

It's so much richer than that.

So let me pray.

Lord, would you bless your people?

Um God, thank you that you are God of hope.

I thank you that our hope is secure because Jesus is who he says he is, that he's conquered, even when everybody thought he was losing and they sneered at him and insulted him and said he saved others, but he cannot even save himself.

They didn't realize they were prophesying the goodness of God, that he chooses not to save himself, so that he can save others.

God, I pray that you would implant that in our hearts.

Allow hope to be stirred up at this season in Jesus' name.

Amen.