Hope in Unexpected Places

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Transcript:

I didn’t think we were going to make it to be with you this morning. We’re going to be in Luke chapter 2, by the way. Luke chapter 2.

I didn’t think we were going to make it to be with you. We knew that coming from Moore and trying to get the kids ready and everything, we were going to have to leave fairly early, leave by a certain time. And we did pretty well.

We were actually running ahead of schedule this morning, which I’m never late anywhere unless it’s Sunday morning. But we were, anytime else I’m an hour early places, but we were running early, which never happens, and things were going great, and ahead of schedule, and Benjamin and I went out to warm up the car, and I was about to buckle him into his car seat, and the ladies were about to head out the door, and I realized we had a screw in the tire, and suddenly our cushion of time started to go away. We had a screw in the tire, and immediately my entire outlook on life just went downhill.

I don’t know if you’ve ever felt that way, but you’re on top of the world, and then something happens, and there’s a screw in my tire, and I’m late, and I hate everything. On top of that, sent Benjamin to go back inside while I tried to figure out what we were going to do, because we couldn’t drive on it that way, and I still have work to do on charla’s car uh before we drove it this far and what are we going to do well he decides at that moment to stick his fingers in the storm door uh and smash them and so everything just started going downhill I’m outside just angry and panicking and trying to figure out this is the second tire I’ve had to replace in in just a few months uh ever since the may 25th or sorry march 25th tornado. Our street is littered with screws and bolts and probably will be until the Lord comes back.

And what are we going to do? Fortunately, a relative was willing to let us use their car to come here today so I can get a tire fixed later. But it was interesting to me how well my attitude toward things illustrated what I was planning to talk about this morning.

You see, when we base our hope, when we base our feelings about the future, when we base our outlook on our circumstances, then it’s very easy to go from hope, it’s not real hope, but it’s easy to go from what we call hope to despair in just a moment. I see this with my daughter as well. I was watching her do some things earlier in the week, and she can be very dramatic.

Some of you have seen her when we came in for Sunday school. She looks sweet and cute, and she is, but there’s another side. My mother and I call her Tallulah when she starts being dramatic.

She can go from sweet to dramatic in just a moment. And she can be sitting on the couch eating fruit snacks and watching Doc McStuffins, and all is right with the world. You ask her questions, and she’s just sweet and cheery, but some little thing goes wrong.

Some little thing goes wrong, and it can be as simple as asking her to get up and pick her socks up. And suddenly the whole world has fallen apart. And I laugh at that until I realize that I’m the same way.

When we base, ladies and gentlemen, when we base our hope on our circumstances, it’s not real hope, and it’s fleeting. Now I say this, you know, to give us an opportunity to laugh about it. We all do that.

You know, there are real reasons for us to be, there are real reasons for us to feel hopeless. We live in a world that is hopeless at times, seems hopeless. at times.

You look at things that are going on in the great big world outside of us, and ISIS is not contained, no matter what anybody tells us. Folks, they’re torturing Christians. People are attacking schools here in the United States.

I watch the news for a little bit every day, and I think, what is happening in our country? Where did all of this crazy come from? But it’s always been there.

That’s human nature. It’s always been there. It’s just kind of had its restraints lifted a little bit.

But it’s easy to look at the great big world outside of us and feel like there is no hope for this world. This world is bad and only seems to be getting worse, is the way it’s easy to look at, if we’re basing our hope on the circumstances of the world around us. I know there are many people who feel hopeless this time of year.

They feel lonely. They feel desperate. They feel a sense of loss.

And telling the story earlier about me and about my daughter, I don’t mean to trivialize that at all. Because it’s real. There are people who have lost. I know this church has experienced loss several times over the last year, Brother Terry has told me. I know people in my own family.

I have a cousin who’s currently, he’s down in Durant, and they just took him off life support this weekend. And now they’re just waiting. and people are torn up over this.

I’ve got a dear friend who was writing on Facebook earlier this week about the one-year anniversary of the loss of her husband. Her husband, I didn’t get to know him for that many years, but he quickly became one of my best friends in the world when I pastored over in Arkansas. There were days that I would not have made it through either my job or just getting on through life without him and his wife.

And reading about her going through the grieving process again made me feel a sense of grieving. And I realize there are people all around us who just feel hopeless. And maybe there are people in this room who feel hopeless.

And folks, I don’t mean to treat that like it’s not important, because it is important. It’s important to remember that we can easily, folks, most of us are just one phone call away from heartbreak. And what I mean by that is think about what it would take for you to walk out those doors today and your world be turned upside down.

A phone call that a loved one is sick, a loved one has passed away. Think about what it would be. Most of us are one bad news phone call away from heartbreak.

And so we get into those circumstances, we get into those situations and we feel like there’s no hope. Because all we see are the circumstances around us. Folks, our hope cannot be built on our circumstances.

Because there are going to be times when our circumstances are wonderful. I have had times in my life where I have been walking around and I could hear I’m walking on sunshine playing in my head as I’m walking around. And then there have been other times in my life where I’ve thought, I don’t know how I’m going to get through the next 20 minutes.

We go through those times. It’s part of human nature. We cannot build our hope on our circumstances.

Our hope has to be built on something more substantial, something that cannot be changed, something that cannot be taken away, something that can’t be pulled out from under us or can’t be taken away in a phone call of bad news, something that’s always there. Folks, I want to look at Luke chapter 2 this morning and see what the answer is for a world that was devoid of hope. And we’re going to start in verse 21 of Luke chapter 2.

It says, And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb. That name Jesus means that he was the salvation of God. There’s a meaning in Hebrew there, meaning that God saves.

And so it’s very appropriate that the angel of the Lord would tell Mary to name him Jesus. Because he was, as we’ll see later on in this chapter, he was the salvation of God sent to his people. And so they went through the rituals eight days after he was born.

We’re going to commemorate his birth later this week with Christmas. Eight days after he was born, in that miraculous night, in the manger, in the stable, because there was no room in the inn, after the virgin gave birth, ladies and gentlemen, don’t ever lose sight of how miraculous it was that God stepped into human flesh in a miraculous way, in a way that beyond the miracles people wouldn’t expect. We talked about that in Sunday school this morning, that he was a king who came in a way nobody expected a king to come.

But everything about the birth of Christ has God’s fingerprints all over it. And so eight days after this miraculous thing took place, they followed the Jewish law and they said he’s going to be circumcised, he’s going to be part of the covenant, we’re going to follow God’s law. And verse 22 says, When the days of her purification according to the law of Moses were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

Now this time of purification, A Jewish woman was expected to set time aside 33 days after the birth of a son, 66 days after the birth of a daughter. I don’t understand the reasoning for the difference, but there was a difference. So 33 days later, after she had gone through this time of ritual purification where she could be considered clean under the Jewish law, they then went into the temple.

They took Jesus with them to be dedicated and to make sacrifices. They would go and make a sacrifice of thankfulness for the child. As it is written in the law of the Lord, every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the Lord.

And to offer a sacrifice according to that which is said in the law of the Lord, a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons. Now my understanding of this is that they were called on to offer an animal, and the turtle doves and pigeons were an option if they were not a family of means, if they were poor people. Folks, these were just regular people.

And they came and they brought their child to the temple to be presented after 33 days. And while they’re in the temple, something else miraculous happens. Now, if I were Mary and Joseph, everything that’s happened would be a lot to take in in just a short time.

You’re being visited by angels and told that things you know can’t happen are going to happen, and then shepherds are coming and praising your child, and then you go into the temple and you’re just doing the normal thing you’re supposed to do, and suddenly somebody steps up and speaks a word from God. Because in verse 25 it says, And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem. whose name was Simeon.

And the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Ghost was upon him. The Bible says this was a good man. This was a man who followed God.

This was a man who sought God. And he was in the temple daily, worshiping God, seeking God’s face, seeking God’s will. And as he was there, the Holy Spirit was on him.

He was waiting, it says, for the consolation of Israel. That word consolation, we have the word that we use to console somebody, to make somebody feel better, although that definition of the word just doesn’t quite cover what the Bible means by it. But this word consolation means to fix everything, to fix the problem.

And so he was waiting for God to come in and fulfill his promises and fix the problem that Israel had, which was that they were looking for a Messiah. They were looking for someone to come and save them. They just didn’t quite understand what kind of saving God had in mind at that point.

But this man who was there worshiping, This man who was there serving God and seeking God, the Holy Spirit moved within him, and he turned, and it says in verse 26, and it was revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. So he also had this promise from God that says, you know, we’ve been waiting, the Jewish people have been waiting for the Messiah for thousands of years. All these prophecies have been given, all these promises, starting with little bits of information at first, but things that later on we can look, and Jesus is spelled out pretty clearly in the Old Testament.

You can read Isaiah 53, and I can’t read that and not see how anyone would not understand it to be talking about Christ. But for thousands of years, people have been waiting for God’s promises to be fulfilled, and God told this man, you won’t die until you see the promise fulfilled. You will get to live to see the promise of the Messiah fulfilled. And so while he was in the temple, verse 27, he came by the Spirit into the temple, and when the parents brought the child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law, Then he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said, Lord, now let us thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people, a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel. And Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him. I bet they did.

And Simeon blessed them and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be spoken against, yea, his sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the weights of many hearts be revealed. And we’re going to stop there this morning. This man is going to the temple daily.

He’s worshiping the Lord. He’s serving God. He’s seeking God with an earnestness that I wish we all would have and a dedication that I wish we all had to finding God’s will.

And as a result of that, God has honored his faithfulness and given him the promise, you will live long enough to see the promise fulfilled. Many in Israel didn’t get to live to see the promise fulfilled. That didn’t mean that the promise wasn’t fulfilled.

But the time was afar off, and he was promised you’ll get to live to see it. And so they’re just in there. Imagine the scene.

They’re in there in the temple. They’re worshiping. They’re doing sacrifices and dedicating the child, just doing the normal thing that Jewish parents were expected to do.

And this man comes over and grabs the child and picks him up and says, Now I can die in peace. He begins to bless God and says, Now let us thou thy servant die in peace. God, I could die a happy man.

I’ve got what I need. And he goes on to say, Because I’ve seen with my own two eyes the salvation that you’ve promised. Now for them, this is an incredible moment.

These things don’t happen on a regular basis. I’ve been there when both of my children were born. And I love them.

They were wonderful. I love them from the moment they were born. I thought they were better than anybody else’s children.

Sorry. Sorry, I have to be partial. But not one person walked in and said, I’ve seen the salvation of God. Now, the sin nature was there and evident very early on.

This was an incredible moment. And it had to be shocking to them, but also had to be a moment of, okay, this goes along with everything else we’ve been told up to this point. He points out, he’s seen God’s salvation with his very own eyes.

He points out that this child has been prepared to go before the face of all people. That he was made to be the salvation of God for all people. Romans chapter 1 says that the gospel of Christ is the power of God and the salvation to all who believe, to the Jew first, but also to the Gentile.

see God didn’t leave us out of this equation the Jews were looking for a Messiah for their selves but God said he will be my salvation before the face of all people and I’m so glad that he is I’m so glad that God’s salvation is not available only to the Jewish people but to the whole world to all those who will believe that he would be a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel one of the things that makes the Israelites the chosen people is that God chose them to be the vessel. God chose to honor the Jewish people by letting them be the vessel through which his son was born into the world. God could have chosen any group of people, but he looked at this little group of descendants of Abraham and said, you’ll bring my son into the world.

You’ll bring the one into the world who’s going to bring my salvation to all mankind. And so it was the fulfillment of these promises to his people, and it says a light to the Gentiles. The Gentiles were so far away from God that they didn’t even realize who the true God was.

There’s still so much of this in our world today. We see videos about missionaries and they go to countries all over the world and places in backwoods and up in the mountains where people have never even heard the name of Jesus Christ and don’t know that there’s a God who loved them, have never heard of the God of the Bible who loved them enough to send his son. There are still people in this world today, sadly, who are in that darkness, A darkness so deep they don’t even realize how blind they are and how dark their situation is.

And into that darkness, God sent light careening, crashing into their world. A light to the Gentiles. That later on, when the Gentiles would hear of Jesus, they would be the ones who would flock to him.

Who would say, this is what we’ve been looking for and didn’t even know it. But today, today I want to focus just for a few minutes on the Jews and the promises that they had received. Ladies and gentlemen, as I said earlier, they had been waiting.

They had been waiting for thousands and thousands of years for the Messiah. I maintain God started promising the Messiah back in Genesis chapter 3. As soon as God caught Adam and Eve and their sin in the garden, and I say caught, I use the term loosely, God already knew that they had sinned before He ever asked them about it.

But as soon as God caught them and handed down the judgment for their sin, the Bible says that he told the serpent that he would send one from the seed of the woman who would crush his head and whose heel would be bruised. That’s almost universally acknowledged as a prophecy of the coming of Christ. A very small bit of information that points to him, but the first of many. In that same chapter, to cover their sins, what does God do?

He makes them a covering of animal skins. Those skins came from an animal. The animal had to die because of their sins, pointing to Jesus Christ the first time the innocent had to die for the sins of the guilty. We read through the Old Testament and we see that God was promising a Messiah for thousands and thousands of years.

And what started off as just a little bit of a faint whisper that they probably wouldn’t understand, eventually through the prophets later on is a full-throated shout that there’s a Messiah coming. And they waited, and they waited, and they were conquered by Philistines and Moabites and Ammonites and they waited. And they were conquered by the Egyptians and they waited for a Messiah who was going to come and save them.

And then they were conquered by the Babylonians. They were conquered by the Persians. They were conquered by the Greeks.

And they’re waiting and finally at the time of Christ they’re conquered by the Romans. And they’re just looking for somebody who’s going to save them and usher in this perfect world where they want to live. That’s what they were looking for.

They were looking for somebody to come in and make their circumstances here on earth better. and time after time after time after time their hopes were dashed when their conqueror either failed to be the Messiah the guy who came in and said I’m going to wipe everything clean I’m going to fix everything he either failed to be the Messiah or at times God used somebody to come in and fix problems but it didn’t last forever because the Israelites would sin against God and another country would come in and take them over and it’s easy to see why after so many centuries after so many thousands of years, they would start to get a little hopeless. They would start to despair.

Because you know what? Our lives aren’t getting any better. We’re still getting pushed around by the Greeks and the Romans and the Persians.

We’re getting pushed around by everybody. We’re not able to practice our religion freely. We’re not able to rule ourselves.

The taxes are too high. We can’t make a living. Things here on earth, things that we focus on on a daily basis, things here on earth are not getting any better.

Where is this Messiah, this promised king who’s going to come fix everything. And they were putting their hope in somebody who was going to come and fix all those earthly things and make all their earthly circumstances better and make all their lives better. And then time after time, their hopes were dashed.

And on top of that, for about 400 years, God had not spoken through his prophets. Now, it’s called by theologians the silent years. I don’t know if it really was silent.

God may have still spoken to people, but we don’t have any new revelation through the prophets to the nation as a whole. And so for about 400 years before Jesus Christ was born, God hadn’t sent any new promises to the nation as a whole. Now, I have to be careful about what I tell my kids that we’re going to be doing in the future because they will drive me nuts about it.

If I tell them, we’re going to watch a movie tonight, I can’t tell them until about an hour out or they will not stop asking. But I told my son about two years ago, We were at a camping and sporting goods store in Norman, and they had drones on sale, which kind of creeped me out when they’re in the hands of the government or big companies, but when you see one on sale for $40 at the store, it’s kind of a fun idea. And he wanted a flying robot.

He was very interested in robots even then. Okay, two years ago, I told him, okay, when I can afford it, when I have extra money just laying around to do something with, I’ll get you a flying robot. And I promised him then, I’ll get you a flying robot.

Every once in a while, he’d bring it up. It was just driving him crazy. When are you going to buy me my flying robot?

I will when I can afford it. When I have this much money set aside, I’ll go get it. Is it going to be this one?

And so I’d tell him which one I was going to get him. It’s going to be a black one. It’s going to light up.

It’s going to have four propellers. Is that what they’re called? I’m not very technical. Four propellers.

And I would tell him little bits of information every time he would ask. I haven’t mentioned that flying robot in several weeks, and he hasn’t either. I think he’s given up hope of ever getting that flying robot.

You know what? It’s wrapped up under the tree. Sometime this week, I don’t know if it’s more for him or more for me, but sometime this week he’s getting the flying robot that I’ve been promising him.

And I don’t mean to trivialize Jesus and say, oh, he’s on par with a flying robot. But I could see where my son, here’s the promise, okay, it’s coming, it’s coming, it’ll be here. I promise I won’t forget.

I’m going to get it for you. It’s going to look like this. It’s going to do this.

And then I don’t talk about it for a good long period of time where he would say, I’m not getting the flying robot. Would lose his hope. Folks, for thousands of years they’d been promised.

And they’d been given bits of information and gotten their hopes up because ultimately they’re not looking for God’s will to happen. They’re looking for somebody who’s going to come and fix all their problems and all their concerns when God had something way better in store for them. And they’d begun to lose hope.

You see, that’s why he’s in the temple daily with such desperation. He’s waiting for the consolation of Israel. How many of us have ever been so sure of a promise that God has given us and been so intent on finding what God’s will is and looking for hope in God and his will that we’ve spent our days, we’ve spent, how many of us have given up nights of sleep in prayer seeking God’s will for the thing that we know he wants us to have?

How many times have we devoted our day to seeking Him and seeking His will? Well, that’s been the focus of the day. Or do we go on looking for hope in earthly circumstances?

I’ve got a three-point message here that I don’t think I’m going to get to this morning. And that’s all right. That happens sometimes.

What I want you to understand is they were in a hopeless world. They were in a hopeless circumstance where they’d been waiting for thousands of years for what they thought was going to happen, for what they wanted to happen. Yes, God had been giving them promises, but they’d gone way beyond those promises.

We’re looking for somebody who’s going to fix every detail of our lives and make the here and now a better place. Folks, that hope was built on their circumstances, and it was dashed time and time again. And then God came through and fulfilled his promises and sent something better.

And Simeon, Simeon was one of a handful of people who were so focused on God’s will that they recognized it. that God sent them something better than a military conqueror who was going to throw the Romans out and follow the worship in the temple and stop charging such high taxes and all the other complaints that they had. God had something way better.

God had an eternal hope for their situation. And Simeon runs to that child and grabs him in his arms and says, I have seen the salvation of God, the light to the Gentiles, the glory of his people Israel. I have seen the fulfillment of God’s promises.

There is hope in God’s promises. And he says, I have seen this and I can die a happy man. Folks, my message to you this morning, I’ve spent a lot of time talking about this passage and trying to understand how they would have felt.

The point of all this to you this morning is that some of you may be in what feels like a hopeless situation, a hopeless time. You might be in a time of despair. If not, you probably will be soon.

I hate to break it to you. We all go through those times of hopelessness and desperation, but we need to be very careful that we are not building our hopes on our circumstances. Well, if I can just get that much money, my life will be better.

If I can just straighten this out in my family, life will be better. Boy, if I had a new truck, if I had a new tire this morning, life would be better. Because you know what?

We can get all the things that we hope for, the little things that make our circumstances better, We can feel like we’re walking on sunshine, only to have the next thing drive us into despair. Our hope has got to be built on the thing that God sent into the world to be the source of our hope. Jesus Christ is the only source of real hope.

He’s the only source of lasting hope. He was sent to be the salvation of mankind. And ladies and gentlemen, it may sound trite, it may sound cliche, but I firmly believe it to be true.

I’m not just saying it because it’s one of those things that pastors say. That if we have the salvation of God through Jesus Christ, almost anything else can be wrong. And it really doesn’t matter in eternity.

You may not believe that. I believe that. Because God has given us a source of hope who not only changes our eternity, but also dries our tears and binds up our wounds while we’re here.

This little baby who was born into the world wasn’t born, I feel like I said some of this two weeks ago, but he wasn’t born to stay in the manger and look pretty on a Christmas card. He was born to walk among us and be tempted as we are and know all of our hurts and our sorrows and our joys and our pains and everything else and live a sinless life so that he could be the sacrifice for our sins. Because just as it doesn’t matter how much goes wrong if we have the salvation of God as our hope, folks, if we don’t have the salvation of God, it doesn’t matter what goes right.

We can have a wonderful life and a Christless eternity in hell. Folks, God sent that child to grow up, to live among us, to show us the way, and to die in my place and yours. When he died on the cross, some 30 years after this, he wasn’t there because he got himself killed for irritating the Romans and the Jews.

He was there because I’d sinned, and you’ve sinned. And he was making the payment for that sin. He shed his blood, and he died.

And that would have been a great story of sacrifice, that he loved us and died for us. But folks, three days later, he rose again and proved that he was God in human flesh, proved that he could forgive sins as he claimed. This morning, you can have the hope that comes only from Jesus Christ. You can have the hope of knowing that there’s a God who loves you, that you have a relationship with him, that your sins are forgiven, and that you have a home in heaven when you leave this life.

We get that hope. We get that hope by believing in the offer that was made by God, where He offers salvation freely. It’s not something we earn or deserve.

You can’t go to church enough to be saved. You can’t go to the right church enough to be saved. You can’t give enough money to the poor.

You can’t be a nice enough person. Any of the things that the world thinks, if I do this, then I’ll be saved. We can’t do those and expect salvation.

God gives salvation as a free gift. If you’ll simply believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins and ask God’s forgiveness on that basis. At that point, folks, there’s a hope that the world can’t take away.

Sometime if I get the opportunity, I may give you my testimony and explain what God has brought me through in the last three years or so. And all the, you know, some of you may have more painful stories than mine, but I’m ultimately convinced after everything that I’ve gone through that if you have that hope, if you have the hope of knowing that God loves you, that Jesus Christ has forgiven your sins, and that one day you’ll get to be with Him forever in heaven. Everything in your life can fall apart, and still there’s hope to cling to.