Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties - Week 1
Notes
Transcript
Countdown Video
Countdown Video
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Scripture Reading by Lady Pepper
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(Show Slide)
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Show Video
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The Series: Rediscover Christmas
The Series: Rediscover Christmas
Title of the message this Morning
Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties
Finding Hope in Our Uncertainties
Week 1
Introduction
Introduction
Where were you when?
Every generation has its “where were you when” question about some cultural seismic event.
Where were you when Neil Armstrong landed on the moon?
Where were you when you heard JFK or Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot and killed?
Where were you when you heard about Columbine?
Where were you on 9/11?
Some of those examples pre-date many of us, but we all have a new one we can share:
Moments like these are big.
They change things.
There’s no going back.
Culture shifts.
Our lives are never the same. Unfortunately, many of these tend to be negative events, catastrophes, or tragedies.
They strike with no warning and introduce a new sense of uncertainty into our lives.
Is this sounding familiar?
It’s called: Doomscrolling or Doomsurfing: It’s the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online.
You know, it’s that scroll through your news feed on social media on your phone, just thumbing through the headlines.
We’ve probably all done it.
Hopefully, we’ve all caught ourselves and learned to limit the doom scrolling before bed.
if you havn’t, you be so of ones that can’t a full night of sleep!
It’s enough to sink anyone into depression.
(example) You go to the doctor, and he/she says “it looks like depression”
Clinical depression:
The persistent feeling of sadness or loss of interest that characterizes major depression can lead to a range of behavioral and physical symptoms.
These may include changes in sleep, appetite, energy level, concentration, daily behavior, or self-esteem.
Depression can also be associated with thoughts of suicide.
I’m not trying to bring us down here.
Quite the opposite.
But this is the reality we’ve all been living with for quite some time.
It’s been a tough few years for all of us.
If there’s ever a year we need Christmas, this is it.
If there’s ever a year we need the hope of Christmas, this is it.
If there’s ever a year we need Christ, my friends, this is that year.
It’s a good thing we’ve made it here—to Advent, nearly to Christmas!
Entering Advent
Entering Advent
This is a season of hope.
Advent is all about hope.
The word Advent means “coming” or “arrival,”
and the season is traditionally a time of expectation, waiting, anticipation, and longing.
Advent is not just an extension of Christmas—it is a season that links the past, present, and future.
Advent offers us the opportunity to share in the ancient longing for the coming of the Messiah, to celebrate His birth, and to be alert for His second coming.
Advent looks back in celebration at the hope fulfilled in Jesus’s coming, while at the same time looking forward in hopeful and eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when He returns for His people.
During Advent we wait for both—it’s an active, assured, and hopeful waiting.
Far too often, our Christmases have become frenzied and overwhelmingly busy.
We pack our schedules with so many seasonal happenings.
Our stores start pushing Christmas decor and merchandise and fueling a gift-buying frenzy in October.
Our season of peace is quickly overloaded as a season of stress.
But Advent is an opportunity to set all that aside.
Advent is a time to prepare our hearts and help us place our focus on a far greater story than our own—the story of God’s redeeming love for our world.
It’s not a season of pretending to be happy or covering up the pain or hardships we have experienced during the past year or continue to experience—it is a season of digging deep into the reality of what it means that God sent His Son into the world to be Immanuel, God With Us.
It is a season of expectation and preparation, an opportunity to align ourselves with God’s presence more than just the hectic season of presents.
So wherever you are on your level of anxiety and uncertainty, wherever you are on your own spiritual journey, I invite you into this season of Advent.
I’d like to even suggest that in the craziness and uncertainty of this year, we’ve been given a gift.
We’ve been given the opportunity to rediscover Christmas.
For the next four weeks, we’re going to be exploring the attributes of Christ, His birth and the Christmas season: hope, peace, joy, and love.
And on Christmas Eve, we will celebrate the arrival of Jesus, the Christ.
Today we begin with rediscovering the hope of Christmas, even when we are surrounded by uncertainty.
Main Teaching
Main Teaching
Simeon and Anna: Keeping Hope Alive
As we explore these themes of Advent over the next four weeks, we’ll see how they relate to and are exemplified in different characters of the biblical Christmas story.
But first, let’s cover a little background to the times these people were living in.
We think we have it bad today, but, you know, so did Israel back in the days of the Bible.
And they could make a pretty good case during the time of Jesus, when they, like much of the world, were a defeated nation under the thumb of the Roman Empire.
It was a harsh day to live in, a time of conquest and brutality.
It had been thousands of years since the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the calling out of God’s people.
It had been thousands of years of being invaded and conquered by enemies like the Assyrians and Babylonians, and then the massive empires of the Greeks and Romans.
It had been generations and generations since the formation of God’s covenant with humanity, promising a Messiah to make things right, to bless humans and restore all that we humans had messed up since God’s perfect Creation.
Important side note:
Deuteronomy 27 and 28 documents the blessings that will come if you obey God's word, and curses if you are disobedient.
Because of the Jews' disobedience concerning God's command, He allowed the Gentile Nations to rule over them. Greeks and Romans
Daniel's series of visions explains how the Gentile world executed their powers and their role in God's plan for the earth.
Nebuchadnezzar dreamed of a colossus that showed an image of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and clay (Daniel 2:31-45). The dream showed how the Gentile kingdoms would rule over the Jews until Christ returns and establishes His reign. We are now living in the times of the Gentiles, which is the era of Gentile domination.
The fulfillment of God’s Covenant and the coming of the Messiah who would come to make everything right wasn't just a happy idea that drifted in and out of the Israelites’ consciousness and culture.
It was their deepest hope that sustained them and encouraged them and spurred them on, especially through thousands of years of uncertain waiting.
They clung to God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3: “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (NIV).
But “How long, O God?” was the cry of the ancient Israelite people.
And how long can hope survive?
Especially under the world-changing forces of the Greek and Roman Empires, whose cultures we are still influenced by today.
Were there even embers of hope left smoldering?
Note
Note
As we see in Luke’s biblical Christmas story, the answer is yes.
Most of the time, we end our Christmas story narrative with Mary and Joseph and Jesus in the stable.
but the next, ongoing scene in Luke’s story comes right after.
I would like for us to look a little more closely today at that scene, and specifically its characters, Simeon and Anna.
Luke 2:22-28
Luke 2:29-38
When the time came for the purification rites required by the Law of Moses, Joseph and Mary took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the Lord”), and to offer a sacrifice in keeping with what is said in the Law of the Lord: “a pair of doves or two young pigeons.”
Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout.
He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him.
It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.
Moved by the Spirit, he went into the temple courts.
When the parents brought in the child Jesus to do for him what the custom of the Law required, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying:
“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,
you may now dismiss your servant in peace.
For my eyes have seen your salvation,
which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”
The child’s father and mother marveled at what was said about him.
Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, so that the thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your own soul too.”
There was also a prophet, Anna, the daughter of Penuel, of the tribe of Asher.
She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, and then was a widow until she was eighty-four.
She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying.
Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. (Luke 2:22-38, NIV)
Simeon and Anna were sparks of hope in Israel.
More than that, they were torches of hope, expecting God to come through and do what He had promised. They believed this! They were waiting for this!
Both Simeon and Anna are likewise elders in this story.
They have both lived long lives.
They have seen and experienced many things, both hardship for their people and pain in their own lives.
We know Anna specifically has been a widow for decades, a position of low social status in that culture.
But we know both Simeon and Anna have remained faithfully devoted to God.
They were ready to see God act and do great things.
Simeon and Anna reveal several things about hope and its power that we can take away and apply in our lives.
1. Hope sees beyond.
1. Hope sees beyond.
Hope is the fuel of faith.
And dreams.
And possibilities.
Hope is that whisper of maybe, just maybe.
It’s the spark in the cold darkness that catches flame.
It’s the flicker of first light on a new morning.
No matter how bad your year has been, no matter what kind of problems and struggles you are facing right now, no matter what kind of season of darkness and pain you are in, let me encourage you not to abandon hope.
Hope is still alive even in our deepest pain and most hopeless circumstances.
Hope chases away the darkness and uncertainty.
Hope is alive because God is with us.
But hope precedes our present reality.
Because that leads us into our second point—
2. God is with us—here, now, and always.
2. God is with us—here, now, and always.
Friends, with God there is no uncertainty.
God knows your pain and challenges and struggles.
He sees you.
And He is here. He is Immanuel, God With Us.
Our God, our Immanuel who is with us, has promised His people throughout history, and us today, messages of hope, including these:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11, NIV)
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. (Isaiah 43:1-2, NIV)
Do you feel the hope in these words?
We are not alone even at our loneliest or darkest moments.
Christ has come.
Our God is with us every step of the way.
3. Hope inspires us to carry on
3. Hope inspires us to carry on
This hope from God’s Spirit does not put us to shame.
It will not let us down.
It will not disappoint us.
Instead it gives us new and growing strength to see beyond the pain and confusion in front of us.
It can be so hard to lift our downcast, tear-filled eyes to look for that tiny spark of hope when we feel swallowed by our pain.
It can seem so difficult to reach beyond our troubles to grasp our Lord’s outstretched hand.
It can feel so impossible to take that first step toward hope when we are weighted down by our burdens.
But when we receive the promise of hope in God’s Word, we find new strength.
When we accept the power of hope granted to us in God’s Spirit, we find new inspiration.
When we focus on the power of hope embodied in the birth and life and death and resurrection and return and eternity of Jesus, we discover new strength to take that first step.
Hope inspires us.
Hope emboldens us.
Hope builds upon hope and keeps us going, no matter what.
Conclusion
Conclusion
What is your next step of hope today?
What is your next step of hope in this Advent season?
So often, we as humans want to see what happens tomorrow.
We want to know the future.
We want to skip to the end of the story.
Our lives just don’t work like that.
It’s not a privilege we’ve been granted.
But in Christ, we have been given the end of the ultimate story.
In Christ, we have been given true life that transcends the pains of earth and the brokenness of our present world.
In this Advent season, we can find hope in the arrival and life of Jesus.
We can draw hope from God’s faithfulness in fulfilling His long-awaited promise of the Messiah.
We can focus on the hope of God’s continued work in and all around us, that will one day take away even the need for hope as we realize the reality of God’s full restoration.
And in the midst of whatever life is throwing at us, we can experience the hope of God’s Spirit within us, carrying us, strengthening us, emboldening us, and giving us the strength to take the next step before us.
Love ones, my invitation to you is to take a step toward hope in this Advent season.
Hope is dawning.
Christ is coming.
He is returning again.
Let’s welcome Him into our hearts and lives every day in this season of expectation and hope.
Let’s pray together.
Let’s pray together.
Salvation:
Salvation:
The Word of God says in:
16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
13 For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
If you’d would like to receive Jesus today, please pray this prayer with all of us:
Lord I believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and that He died On the cross for my sins and His resurrection from the dead gives me eternal life. I ask forgiveness of my sins, and I accept Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Amen.
Pastor Doc@FaithVision.org
Church Office: 909-922-8090
And I will send you a Bible & a Free Book on how to begin your first 21 steps with Jesus (show the book)
***Leave slide up until Pepper gets in position***
Lady Pepper Please Join Me
Lady Pepper Please Join Me
Pepper Praise Reports
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Lady Pepper do we have any prayer request
Let us Pray (P/P)
Delia - 3 operations
Smith Family for peace / lose of a love one
Vadria - Healing
Joyce - Car Accident
This is Pastor Doc & Lady Pepper with:
Faith Vision Christian Ministries
See you next Sunday @ 10:55 on Facebook Live!!
See you next Sunday @ 10:55 on Facebook Live!!
Instagram and YouTube, spreading the Word, keeping hope alive!
Prayer Line - Thursday night at 7:00 pm. conference phone number. # (712) 451-0408 access code 896791
Benediction
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:13, NIV)
Have a Great Week! Goodbye!