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Our Need for Hope
Celebrating Christmas is our natural response to Emanuel - God With Us!
Jesus came to visit His creation in humility and weakness.
The incomparable, unique, immeasurable God placing Himself in our midst.
What state of sadness or defeat can plead it’s case before the presence of the LORD?
With Him, we have everything.
But without God, we are hopeless.
What do we know about hopelessness?
It depends on who you ask.
From good Therapy.org
:
THE HOPELESSNESS SCALE
In 1974, Dr. Aaron Beck designed the Beck Hopelessness Scale (BHS) with the aim of quantifying the feeling of hopelessness by examining an individual’s thoughts and beliefs about the future.
The BHS, designed for those over the age of 17, comes in the form of a self-report questionnaire containing 20 true or false statements.
The responses to these statements are used to measure the three primary aspects of hopelessness: feelings about the future, decreases in motivation, and expectations.
The BHS can also be used as a measure of suicidal risk among people with depression who have previously attempted suicide.
THERAPY FOR HOPELESSNESS
Hopelessness can be distinguished by inhibited motivation, a lack of interest, negative thoughts about the future, or a negative view of the self.
These feelings may become worse depending on a person’s mood.
Cognitive therapy, also developed by Beck, has proven to be one effective treatment for those experiencing hopelessness.
This type of therapy targets an individual’s negative thoughts and assumptions.
As cognitive therapy requires that individuals in treatment carefully analyze the validity of their assumptions, those dealing with feelings of hopelessness may initially be resistant to the approach.
However, therapists can often overcome this obstacle by first working with the person in therapy to address these feelings, often by focusing on self-esteem enhancement.
Numerous studies show that therapy is often able to help those experiencing hopelessness regain their hope and achieve lasting mental wellness.
If our main problem was negative thoughts and assumptions, Dr. Aaron Beck would have really been on to something!
But hopelessness has it’s roots in something much more profound, and beyond ourselves.
So we will never find the answer to hopelessness from within.
Job experienced hopelessness.
It existed in three distinct areas of His life:
Matter, Mind, Relationship
The reality of the actual events of his life
The thoughts of His mind
His relationship with God
All these things are connected.
Each can be addressed separately, but profound hope can only be achieved when we address all three.
Who is that tree of life?
Do we hope in the power and possessions of this world?
The next verse gives the answer
It doesn’t take too many years of life before we begin to know this - We all need hope!
We need hope over our thoughts.
Hope in our circumstances.
And most importantly, we need hope in our relationship to God.
How does the announcement of Jesus’ birth provide hope?
Pray
Hope Proclaims Victory
Luke 1 :26-38
How many of you look forward to something that turns your life completely upside down?
Did any of you respond to COVID like “Good, I was looking for a change!”?
Some handle change better than others, but we usually want to be at least a participant in the panning!
God confronted Mary and Joseph with an announcement, not a proposition.
They were two young Jewish people at a time in history where being Jewish was not a path to great wealth of security - especially if you were a common person.
And Mary and Joseph were common people.
Great change was not likely to produce great opportunity.
So when the message was given to Mary “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” she was quite uncomfortable.
She didn’t that greeting was addressed to the right person.
‘The Good Place” - They knew they were not in the right place.
How was she favored?
Why is the Lord setting her apart?
Notice, Gabriel doesn’t exactly answer her concern, but encourages her - “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God.”
Mary has found favor.
The word for “have found” is heuriskō vb. to find.
To discover, obtain, or arrive at a particular state.
We get our word heuristic from this.
A heuristic algorithm is a program that interrogates every option until a solution is found.
If this was the sense it is used here, Mary might have responded with more expectation and relief than being ‘greatly troubled’.
She ‘found’ favor with God more like this.
We know the phrase Old Mother Hubbard.
What’s in her cupboard?
(Nothing!)
Mrs. Hubbard (and her dog for whom she went to fetch a bone) is in a state of need, hunger, and uncertainty.
But what if when she went to the cupboard, she found more than plenty for her and her household?
She didn’t put it there, or purchase it all.
But she would FIND HERSELF in a state of blessing.
This is the sense for Mary.
She is favored because God has changed her status, not because she has.
When hope depends on what we do, find, or accomplish it is only as secure as our continued effort and perfection.
This is NOT hope, but burden!
Hope is victory over our own status - lost sinners.
We have no ability to reach beyond the common state of humanity.
Hope must come from God.
Victory over lostness.
And so the proclamation of Victory:
Jesus is the hope of salvation, the hope of nations, the hope of His people, the hope of Mary!
His salvation is anointed from days of old and promised effective through the end of time.
But the best part of the hope of Emmanuel?
That God proclaims it!
And God performs it!
How would you respond to such an incredible message?
That the Spirit of God will overcome you and produce in you the Son of God? Would you believe it?
Would you trust it?
Would you change your life in response to it?
Victory over fruitlessness.
God’s massage of hope and deliverance declared victory to Mary.
That whatever situations her physical life when through, whatever thoughts of her future, and whatever she understood about her position relative to God was anchored in this declaration.
God declares the same victory in our lives.
His Spirit calls us to Himself.
He dwells within us and creates in us a new person, in the image of His Son.
God has declared the hope of victory - will you live in it?
Hope Gives Life.
Jesus was born for a purpose - for a mission.
That mission is Hope for reconciliation of the creator and a rebellious creation, between God and Man.
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