Advent: A Season of Hope
Advent 2020 • Sermon • Submitted
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Advent 2020 Week 1: Prophecy / Hope
Isaiah 7:14
Introduction: Hope from hopelessness. The story of Martin Pistorius.
Introduction: Hope from hopelessness. The story of Martin Pistorius.
In 1987 a 12 year old boy named Martin was enjoying life like every young man his age does when he suddenly became ill. For reasons doctors couldn’t explain, he fell into a vegetative state, and for three years he was completely unresponsive. Doctors told Martin’s parents that he was brain dead, completely unaware of his surroundings, and he would never recover.
But they were wrong. Three years later, during his 16th year, he began slowly to regain consciousness. Another three years later he had become completely conscious of his surroundings once again. But he couldn’t tell anyone. He was still completely paralyzed, with the exception of his eyes. Locked in his own body, he was fully aware of who he was, where he was, what was happening, but he couldn’t tell anyone.
Martin saw & heard many things he wasn’t supposed to see & hear. He witnessed abuse in care centers, heard secrets, and heartbreakingly, heard his own mother wish he would die.
Martin was in a complete state of hopelessness. Completely unable to change his awful circumstances by his own strength, with no prospects of life ever getting better.
But he maintained hope. One day one of his caregivers, a lady named Vima, an aromatherapist, began to recognize that Martin would make the slightest of responses to particular things she said or did. She alerted doctors were able to confirm that -- YES! -- Martin was fully conscious, though he couldn’t move. A full twelve years after he became ill, at the age of 25 in 2000, Martin finally began receiving the care he needed, eg. a speech computer, physical therapy, etc.
Martin eventually got mostly better. He still can’t talk, but his speech computer talks for him. And he still can’t walk, but his wheelchair walks for him. He earned a college degree, married in 2009 to a lady named Joanna, they’ve had a child together.
Where there had been no hope, hope flourishes.
Transition: Hope is an awful thing to lose, perhaps mainly because it’s the last thing you can lose.
Sometimes it might seem like you’re in a hopeless situation. In spite of all your best efforts, things just don’t get better. Advent is a time to remember that God is real, He’s made us promises that He intends to keep, and there is always hope.
When All Seems Hopeless...
When All Seems Hopeless...
Judah was in a hopeless predicament.
Weakened. It’s been nearly 200 years since Solomon’s “Golden Era” of wealth and peace. Since then it’s gone all down hill. The kingdom split,
Surrounded by enemies. Syria and Israel to the north are desperate to fight off the encroaching Assyrian kingdom, and they want to force Judah to help them. Verse 2 could be translated, “Ephraim is swarming with Syrians.” The enemy was on the doorstep.
No good options
“It was, in other words, a time when all appeared to be lost, and at such a moment God intervened with an announcement of hope” (Young, 269).
You will endure seasons of hopelessness.
Financial. Illustration: Working three jobs (headhunter, paper delivery, waiting) just to barely scrape by.
Health.
Divorce
Ungodly children
Gossip/slander
Disappointing leaders
When you feel hopeless, remember that God brings hope out of hopeless situations.
God brings hope out of hopelessness.
God brings hope out of hopelessness.
He did it for Ahaz and Judah. He promised Ahaz deliverance (Isa 7:7b-9).
Not for Ahaz’s sake.
Ahaz would fail in his faith here and ultimately (2 Kings 16:5-7).
But God would keep His promise. Within sixty-five (65) years, the Assyrians would overwhelm Israel & Syria to the north (Isa 7:8). They would never bother Judah again.
Hope always springs from believing the promise of God.
The Jews of Jesus’ day were nearly hopeless, as well.
Conquered/Occupied by one power after another (Assyria, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece, Rome).
Compromised rulers (spiritual and political)
Where is the Messiah? Will He ever come? Will God keep His promise?
Jesus is our Hope.
Jesus is our Hope.
730 years after Isaiah’s prophecy, the angel, Gabriel, was sent to a young man named Joseph. He had received disheartening news: his fiance was pregnant. When Mary told him the child was a miracle from God, he thought what anyone would and planned to divorce her. But God sent Gabriel, the angel, to confirm Mary’s testimony. And this is what he told Joseph (Matthew 1:20b-25): Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Matthew adds the following clarifying comment: All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).
Jesus was born into a hopeless situation.
Scandal of a “virgin” mother.
Poverty. “Curds & honey” was food of the poor.
Legalism in the temple & compromise in the palace. A Roman boot at their neck.
The people’s spirits were low.
God did come to live as a man among men. The Dawn of Hope began to shine that day Gabriel announced Jesus’ birth.
Jesus is our deliverance. Jesus is our salvation. Jesus is our hope.
Faith Come before Hope
Faith Come before Hope
Ahaz’s Unbelief
Was Ahaz a man of faith? Sadly, we learn that he was not.
He wouldn’t even take God up on His offer to prove His word by a miracle (Isa 7:10-12).
“If you are not firm in faith, you will not be firm at all” (Isa 7:9b). And Ahaz wasn’t firm.
You have a choice. / Invitation
Trust in yourself (your choices, experience, intuition, family, etc).
“There is indeed a sin of ‘testing God.’ Essentially it is the sin of unbelief. Characteristically it says, ‘I will trust if God proves himself trustworthy’ or ‘I will not believe unless God so proves himself’ (Motyer, 83).
Trust in God, specifically His provision in Christ.
He was born to bring hope to the hopeless.
He lived, died, and rose again for this same purpose.
He intercedes on your behalf when you are hopeless. He knows how you feel because He once felt the same way (Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me...My God! My God! Why have you forsaken me?)
This won’t mean immediate relief.
How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me (Ps 13:1)?
David’s response: But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me (Ps 13:5-6).
Hope is a good thing…maybe the best of things. And no good thing ever dies. (Andy Dufresne, Shawshank Redemption)
We will endure difficulties. We must endure them. But we must never lose hope. Because Jesus conquered death, we have hope.