12-21-25 - In Him Shall The Gentiles Hope

When they say the Christmas spirit. And this is a real question. What's it mean? Cheerful. Generous.

Say. Generous. Generous. Heaven. Yeah.

There's some thought of heaven in it. Yeah. This is what Christians think of it. Sure. What's the what's a more common or broadly accepted?

What what's the Christmas spirit more generally? Levi? Candy canes. Shopping. Right?

You have to get in the spirit to go spend a bunch of money. Festive, decorations, snowmen. Right? Reindeer. Yeah.

It is Christmas is about Jesus Christ or it's supposed to be about Jesus Christ. And we think our Christmases ought to be about Jesus Christ. And it's it is hard as a Christian to figure out how to have Christmas be about Jesus Christ and navigate the social and even internal pressures of doing all the other stuff. Like, would it be Christmas if you didn't have gifts? There's really no reason it couldn't be, is there?

I mean, biblically speaking. Not the gifts are good or bad and of them, you know, are are intrinsically bad or anything like that. I'm not trying to make that case. But could you even conceive of having Christmas without gifts? And if not, why not?

It's an interesting thing to think about as we consider the the nativity, the birth of our savior. And so this morning, I'm gonna be stepping away from Deuteronomy this week and next, this week to talk about, hope. I think that the Christmas spirit rightly understood in the Christian heart and mind is that it ought to be a season of hope and anticipation. And we're gonna have to unpack and understand what that hope is. Hope isn't just one thing.

We don't just hope for one thing. But what ought we as Christians hope in? This next week, we're gonna be traveling, some of us. We're gonna be spending time with family. We're going to have spent and probably some of you still have to spend money.

There will be gifts. There will be food. And these things are all good, and you should enjoy them. But these aren't the things that that that these are not the substance of the Christian's understanding of of Christmas, of our savior's birth. They're not what we ought to be focused on.

They're extras. We shouldn't come to the dinner table and say, may I please have bread and pie? Bread and pie are great, but they're not the staple of the meal, are they? Many times these things, the gifts and the money and the food and the travel and the people can be a distraction to us from focusing on our Lord's birth. And his birth is much more to us than an occasion to travel, a reason to spend time with loved ones or to spend money or to share meals.

His birth is is the basis of our hope. There are many passages in scripture that deal with the Christian hope or what Christians ought to hope hope in. We hope for many things. We hope for eternal life. We hope for the forgiveness of our sins.

We hope for rest. We hope for peace with God. We hope in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in turn our resurrection and many other such things. We have many things we hope in and hope for. This morning we're not just gonna be focusing on one passage from scripture as I normally do.

But this morning we're going to look at a number of passages that are that are all focused around hope, with the goal of shaping and informing what we as Christians ought to hope for during this time of remembering and celebrating our Lord's birth. Why did I choose this topic? Well, because I'm a bit of a Scrooge myself. And if I'm hopeful, I keep my hopes to myself and I don't keep them to myself the way Mary kept her her good news to herself. I just kind of use it as an excuse to be just the same as always.

And I think that I'm probably not the only one in this room this morning that fits that description. And so my goal this morning isn't to convince you that you are without proper hope. I think that's probably settled for many of us already. My goal rather is to encourage you to hope in the Lord and to draw near to him this week as you celebrate Jesus' incarnation. So what is Christian hope?

That is the question before us this morning. What is Christian hope? Well, I'll first start by saying that the Christian hope is not a hope that's only found in the New Testament. It's a that the the saints in the Old Testament, Israel had hope. In Psalm one nineteen verses 49, it says, remember the word to your servant in which you have made me hope.

And so Eric's been preaching through Psalm one nineteen, and whether it was David who wrote it or whether it was Daniel who wrote it, we could look at both of those men in their lives and say their lives were not the lives we'd want to lead. Though we might want their holiness, I don't know that we want their experience. Would you trade places with them? You could be the king of Israel. And have Saul trying to kill you.

And have your sons opposing you. And be a murderer, and an adulterer, and a man after God's own heart, and not allowed to build the kingdom, or the the the the the temple. Right? Like, I don't know that I'd really wanna live David's life. The good parts about Daniel.

Your life in your hand as to whether you pray or what you eat. Remember the word to your servant in which you have made me hope. Israel's hope was in the Lord doing the things that he said that he would do for them. And the Lord promised to do many things for them. Sometimes his promises were physical and tangible.

Things they could touch and feel. Other times his promises were spiritual. Sometimes they were both. Physical and spiritual. Most of the times in the Old Testament where physical hope, where Israel is hoping in something physical, where that's the reference, it has to do with deliverance from some sort of oppression.

Hope is an interesting thing. Hope is is what you have when things aren't going well. Hope is not what you have when things are going well. It's what you have when things aren't going well. And so when Israel hoped in the Old Testament, many times it was, that their enemies would perish.

That God would rise up and deliver them. That their afflictions or their plagues or their famines or their sicknesses would would be relieved. That they would get the land that the Lord had promised to them. And so they hoped in these things. Why did they hope in those things?

They hoped in those things because God had promised to do those things for them. How long did they hope in those things? Their entire lives. Israel upon Israel hoping in the thing in the promise of the Lord being fulfilled their entire lives. Do you remember we're skipping ahead to the New Testament.

We'll come to it. But just, by way of example, you remember Simeon? What did Simeon say when he saw Jesus Christ and he got to hold him? He says now, I can die in peace. I've seen the consolation of Israel.

He waited and he waited and he hoped and he waited and he waited. And then he saw and then he says, it's it's all it's it's good for me now. And so Israel hoped many times for generations for the physical things that were promised to them to be given to them. And so hope is not a sort of thing that that, you know, if we said if we were to say, I hope I get the job. Like the scope of that hope is a week or maybe two.

Right? It's not a very long time. Many of the things we hope for, that we physically hope for have a very short, time frame. But these people, God's people, even in the old testament, they hoped for generations. For generations and generations that the Lord's word which he had spoken to them would be fulfilled.

And so this theme of of hope is written all through, the Old Testament. I was I I could just I could overwhelm you with passages of it. But I'm gonna read to you two of them. One from Job thirteen fifteen. And if you wanna know the two books in the Old Testament that are full of this idea of hope more so than really anyone else, it's the book of Job and it's the book of Psalms, not surprisingly.

Right? And so from the book of Job's Joe or book of Job verses chapter 13 verse 15. He says though he slay me, I will hope in him. In the midst of his comfortable easy life? No.

No. In the midst of his incredible suffering and pain, and sorrow and grief, though he slay me, I will hope in him. What Job is saying in effect is that he has nothing left but to hope. Nothing around him has gone favorably. It's all been stripped away.

His family, his wealth, all but his wife who wasn't helpful in that moment. His friends were not helpful. Though he slay me, I will hope in him. It's all that he had left was a hope in God's mercy. In Psalm 42 verse five, the psalmist reasons with himself, why are you in despair, oh my soul?

And why have you become disturbed within me? Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever had your soul rise up inside of you, your heart well up in despair or anger or fear? Why are you in despair oh my soul and why have you become disturbed with me? And then comes the council, hope in God.

Hope in God for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence. Interestingly, the help of his presence. Not the not the change of his circumstances, not the freedom from his afflictions. Hope in him and praise him for the help of his presence. His presence is helpful and gives hope to his people.

And this psalmist repeated this. I won't I I have to put up again. This exact same verse shows up again just five verses later in in verse or six verses later in verse 11. Psalm forty two eleven says the exact same thing. And then again in Psalm 43 verse five, we find the same verse again.

Word for word, a refrain, and a balm to the Christian and who suffers. Hope is a constant theme in the Old Testament. It's a virtue that should mark God's people. Whatever circumstance they find themselves in, they should have been a people known for their hope. Not their despair, not their wealth, not their strength, not their wisdom, not their glory, their hope.

Hope is what we have when life isn't as it should be. Isn't how we planned it to be. Isn't how we hoped it would be. When we feel as though we have nothing else. We've not been deprived of our hope.

Now it's a hard it's an easy thing to say. It's like it's and it's kind of an easy thing to hear, but it's a difficult thing to live out. Because if we're to live it out, it means that when despair and anguish and affliction and sorrow and other things like that well up inside of us, what what is it? It's like it's as if I took a a pitcher of water and just that's the hope and we just poured the water all over it and we just smothered it out. Snuffed it right out.

But a Christian hope has that water poured on it like like like the like the sacrifice offered by Elijah. Pour the water on it. Pour the water on it. Right? And it's like it's his life.

Right? If if if God doesn't send fire, Elijah's done. Pour the water on it. And then comes the flame burning back up through the through the through the water and through the muck. That's Christian hope.

It's durable. It's ever present. It's It's solid and reliable. And so Israel, in the Old Testament, through all of their calamities, had hope and were exhorted to have hope and sought hope. Have you ever wondered if you would have liked to live back then?

No GMOs. No social media. No what? No seed oils. No seed oils.

Right? Wasn't life better then? I don't know that I would have. I mean, if you talk about, like, quality of life, I I I don't buy it. I don't think most of us would do well just having to live off the grid in a modern, thoroughly modern society where we can record it in four k.

I don't think we'd handle it well. Their lives hung in the balance of it. And yet, they were to hope. And so they hoped for a lot of physical things because their life was was exceedingly physical, and their food and their protection was always on their mind. But that wasn't the only thing they were supposed to hope in.

Those were all present hopes. Those were all physical hopes. Those were all things that were commended to them. But Israel also had a future hope. They had a hope not just of getting the thing that they were promised, but there was something further off that we probably understand that that I'm convinced we understand better now than they did at the time because we've lived since Jesus coming and his ascension and so much so much later on in history, so much more of God's will has been revealed.

I think we understand better their hope, the hope they should have had then than they did. Nevertheless, we read back to the promises that were given to them and we say, wow, they had a big future hope. And even if they didn't realize it, we do. So simple things like in Jeremiah twenty nine eleven. The Lord says, I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord.

Plans for welfare and not calamity. To give you a future and a hope. Now they likely would have understood that as being a very present or short term hope. But I'd ask you that future and that hope that was to be given to the Lord's people, the plan for welfare and not for calamity, has that been fully realized today? It hasn't it.

It hasn't been fully realized yet. There is still a part of that, of a fullness of that hope that was promised to them that we still have a hope of. Thousands of years later, we read this passage. For I know the plans that I have for you declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for calamity, to give you a future and a hope. And we go, that wasn't just for them back then.

That's actually still true today for me. Now I realize that this path that particular particular verse has been abused in many ways. But the abuse of the verse doesn't doesn't remove its true and helpful right meaning. Does God still have a plan for welfare, for a future, and for a hope for his people today? He does.

And from our vantage point, which is different than the original hearers of that promise, we don't have as much, promise. We don't have as much, excuse or well, excuse for being drawn away into the physicality of that promise. I think one of the primary ways that passage is abused today is it's pulled right it's just pulled right into life right now. And it says, right now and in this life, you're going to have a good thing, a better thing. That future and a hope is, like, just right around life's the next corner of life.

It pulls our eyes and our thoughts down from the blessed hope that's to come, that's yet to be revealed. And so we have to guard against being, misreading God's blessings and our hope is primarily being fulfilled in this world. They're not. They're not. I asked earlier, would you have liked to been David or Daniel?

And we're all kinda like, And I asked, would you like to have lived during Israel's time? And we're all like, And I go, okay. What do you think you'll say in glory about the life that you're leading right now? Would you rather live here or there? And we all go, I'd rather live there.

That's the Christians hope. Is that the sorrows that David faced and the sorrows that lions that Daniel faced and and and the griefs that that we face now will one day be put away with. Finally and completely. And they won't just be held back and restrained for a little time. It won't just be a season of reprieve.

It will be true and everlasting peace and rest. And I'd rather live then. So God still does have a future and a hope in store for his people. And so we have to keep that in mind as we read these promises, not that we don't pull them right down into this life as though this life is all there is. Paul says that the in in, first Corinthians 15, I didn't put this in the on the slides, but he says, you know, if if we have hoped in this life only, we above all men are to be pitied.

Our hope, the Christian hope reaches far beyond this life. It reaches so far beyond this life that Paul says crazy things like like, for me to live as Christ and to die is gain. And as for me, I I don't know which to choose. And you're like, what? I remember saying that to a a friend of mine, you know, years ago, five, seven, I don't know, years ago.

And an older man who's had hard things in his life and goes to a church, but I don't think is a Christian. And I said that to him. And he's he said, we're talking about the how much satisfaction we could get out of this life. And I told him, you know, I I mean, I've obviously got a wife and a bunch of kids and he's a grandfather and he's delights in his kids and his grandkids. And I said to him, you know, I do love my kids, wife and my kids.

And I do. And it's not that there's there's not any lack of delight in the things that God's given me in this world. But it will be better in heaven. And there is some part of like, there is something in what Paul says that resonates with me. And I hope resonates with you.

But I don't know which is better. Like, there's a small part and I I hope an increasing part that that that agrees with that. And that's not to say you don't love your wife or your husband or your children or your grandchildren. That you'd be happy to come or to go like an absent father. That's that's that's not at all what it means.

It just means that the Christian hope is such that their desire to be with their God is a growing fire within them. And that suffering and sorrow and the things that cause the despair and the anguish and the and and all these things to well up inside of us actually stoke that hope. But too often it doesn't stoke stoke that hope because our hope doesn't see beyond this life and it should. Now a longer passage from Isaiah chapter 11. I wanna read this passage to you and then and then point out that the that this passage not in detail, but in substance is quoted both by Matthew in chapter 12 and by Paul in Romans 15.

The title of our sermon is in him referring to Jesus Christ. In him shall the Gentiles hope. Now unless you're a Jew, you're a Gentile. And what that means is that this thing that's being spoken of way back in Isaiah 11 is our hope. Was their hope and now is our hope.

He's pretty tough, Joanna. Good job. Solomon just took a tumble. Isaiah 11 verses one through 10. Then a shoot will spring from the stem stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit.

And I will say, having been an arborist at one point, that they have hope in a tree that's been cut down, still living. And these extraordinary trees, the only trees that that live that that send suckers up from a cut stump are weed trees. Willows. Things you don't want. I don't like willows.

Willows are awful trees. Some of you might like them, but they're weeds. And they're the only things that sprout from from a from a cut a cut stump. Every other tree, you cut it down. It's silver maples sometimes.

They're they're weeds too. But generally, oak trees? Nope. Walnuts? Nope.

Cherry? Nope. Hard maple? Nope. You cut it down, it's gone.

Apple trees? Fruit bearing trees? Go cut them down and see what happens. They don't grow anymore. But they have hope.

God gives them hope. Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. So something dead being made alive. Right? The spirit of the Lord will rest on him.

You're getting this this this picture slowly coming into focus. We're talking about a man, a person. We're gonna learn all kinds of things about him. The spirit of Lord will rest on him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And he will delight in the fear of the Lord, Lord. And he will delight in the fear of the Lord, and he will not judge by what his eyes see, nor make a decision by what his ears hear, but with righteousness, he will judge the poor, and decide with fairness for the afflicted of the earth. And he will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips, he will slay the wicked. Also, righteousness will be the belt about his loins, and faithfulness, the belt about his waist. Now I'm gonna stop there for a second and say all of this describes this stem or this branch that's going to come from the root of Jesse.

Tells us all about all the things he's gonna done. And even now, if you're listening and you've been tracking, you realize all of that stuff even still is not done. There's still parts of that yet left to be fulfilled. But now Isaiah transitions from what he'll be like to what the place will be like. Where this when when this is all fulfilled, this is what the inhabit the the habitation will be like.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the young goat. And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together and a little boy will lead them. Now you who have little children, would you like them to run around with those critters? That's what you should be thinking. I don't want my little boys running around though as much as they might want to.

Also, the cow and the bear will graze. Their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper's den. They will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the water covers the sea. Then in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse, who will stand as a signal for all the peoples, and his resting place will be glorious.

Now, this is a a prophecy concerning Jesus Christ, and what he's going to come to do. And he came and he did some of this. He's fulfilled some of it. He's begun the work. He's not completed it yet.

He is completing it now through us, but we'll finally return and come back to finalize it all. And so when Paul and and, Matthew refer to this passage, they say, in him, referring to these last couple of verses, in that day, the nations will resort to the root of Jesse. In him will the Gentiles hope. And so those promises that belong to Israel so long ago come from Isaiah, belong to us as well, and are still yet to be fulfilled. And so we don't have any reason to forsake or forget our hope.

God's not done. He still has work to do. And we ought to hope in its fulfillment. If you think about what's promised in this, in this passage, you realize a lot of this stuff well, I'll ask it to you as a question. Do you expect it to happen in this world?

Do you expect that the wolf will dwell with a lamb and a leopard will lie down with it? Do you ever expect that to happen in this world? No. But what if what if we have another two thousand years, maybe then? No.

There's something contrary to nature. As we understand it in that in that passage. It'll be different. And you aren't gonna get to it in this world. You can desire it.

You can seek it. But you won't get it here and now. A lion eating straw. A kid playing with a cobra. These are things that come in what's described as in this passage as his holy mountain, but I would say to you the new heaven and the new earth.

When he's resting when we're welcomed into his resting place, his glorious resting place. This is what we hope in. This is a land of eternal rest with God in glory. And so what is the Christian hope? The Christian hope is the hope of eternal life with God through Jesus Christ.

And I started out asking you what's the Christmas spirit and and what do we hope in? And many of the things that we hope in are temporary, in that they they could come and then they could be taken away. Or they're, they're temporary and that you can't take them with you into the next world. Or you might not get them at all. But a Christian's hope is a hope of eternal life with Jesus Christ.

In Titus chapter three, Paul talks about this. He says, he saved us. This is verses five through seven. He saved us not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our savior. That being Isaiah talked about, and this hope that that David or Daniel talked about in Psalm one nineteen.

The hope that Job talked about. The hope that Jeremiah talked about. And hope that many others talked about was a hope of eternal life. This is the Christians hope. Our hope in the end, it's not in this world.

It doesn't have to do with the things of this world. And to this point, I would expect no one's really disagreeing or feeling any any tensions in what I'm saying. But I don't know that we hope in eternal life and for the glory that yet to be revealed the way that we should. I don't think it occupies nearly the real estate in our heart and minds that it ought to. I think we take it for granted.

I think we worry about it. Take it as a given. And these thing these this this denigration of our hope flows out of a false view of God's grace that's come to us. What Titus talked about was that that Jesus had to die and that we weren't special. And that because of the work that he did, we would receive hope of eternal life.

So what are some of the the false views of God's grace that that that extinguish our hope? Well, the first is what might be entitled, simply be referred to as entitlement. You feel entitled to God's grace. You guys may be familiar with what's what's been called the cheap grace movement where you just the whole point is just to tell people that that God loves them. That's the whole point.

And it's really the whole message. And if someone gets that idea into their head, they're set. They don't have to worry about it anymore. They don't have to think about it anymore. Nothing is required of them.

Nothing is, expected of them. Nothing really changes. After all, they're not that bad. They deserve it. They've been told that it's theirs for the taking.

Why wouldn't God forgive them? This idea, this this conception of eternal life being so trivial and cheap and and attainable. This is not how Paul thought of himself when he described himself as the chief of as a chief of sinners. This is not how the publican who who couldn't lift his head and who beat his chest and said, have mercy on me a sinner. This isn't how they thought of themselves.

And yet, they both had hope. But their hope wasn't in themselves. They didn't feel entitled to so greater kindness, mercy or a blessing. You guys are familiar with the concept of the idea of a trust fund baby or a trust fund kid? What's wrong with a trust fund kid?

Is it that their parents have a bunch of money? Is that actually the problem? No. It's not wrong for their parents to have a bunch of money. Is it wrong for them, for the parents to wanna, provide for and care for their children?

No. That's not a problem either. But what if it's excessive? Who are we to judge? What's excessive?

Right? What's the problem? The problem is that the child feels entitled to the the inheritance without earning it or honoring those who did earn it. The whole the whole idea of a trust fund kid is they're they're an entitled brat. Now we could quibble about what the the the inherent virtue of work.

I think there is inherent virtue in work. I don't think that if you don't have to work, you shouldn't work. I don't I don't subscribe to that. But there's something wrong. We understand it in our bones that they that they have something that they don't appreciate, that many people don't have, and they just take it for granted.

But that's what Christianity, the hope of eternal life has become today. It's just something we presume. It's just ours because somebody told us it was, if we wanted it. And it didn't come with any obligations or responsibilities or humility or repentance. It was just it was just given to us.

Now it is true that if it comes to us, it is just freely given to us. But it is very costly. And so those who feel entitled to God's grace don't have a need of hope. We don't hope for what we see. We don't hope for what we have.

No one hopes for a job when they have one. They hope for a job when they don't have one. So that's one way that the the hope of the gospel, the hope of eternal life is is extinguished. Another way and maybe, more tempting in our circles is, what I would call an overdone or overcooked understanding of the covenant. There's a way of taking hold of the promises of God in such a way that you don't feel any of the the turbulence that's demonstrated all throughout history with regard to who's in and who's out of the covenant.

And what the what the the evidence of that looks like. I'm baptized. I come to church. I got married. Bring my kids to church.

I have devotions. We take communion. We serve. We don't have anything to worry about. It's a difficult thing to describe.

It's hard to find words to articulate. The fact that there are things you are you though all of those things are good and true and can be evidences of your hope in Jesus Christ, except for when they don't. There are those who thought they in the you know, that Jesus describes as as the goats, those who served God, those who we've done all of these things in your name. And yet when they come to him at the end, he says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

There is this there is this barb in the promises of God that we shouldn't take lightly. And I don't mean to say that to to diminish our hope in the in in in the in the faithfulness of God or in the promises that he's made. But simply to say, we ought to be humble. And and be searching out and seeking to produce the fruit of our membership in the covenant. And not just presume that some thing we did at some time settled our account, settled our concern.

The Christian hope is toward eternal life. And that hope is is founded on our sins being forgiven through Jesus life and death and resurrection. At this point, I suspect some of you are going, how long is he gonna talk about this? And if you're thinking that, then you should know that that was the next question in my sermon. Here's the question.

If the Bible, as I've briefly tried to demonstrate to you, is always talking about the necessity of hoping in the Lord, why does it seem as though we don't need these encouragements and exhortations? Why are we tired of them? Why do they seem laborious and long winded to us? Well, first, we should ask our we should ask ourselves this question and see if we're in one of the two groups, not that they're the only two groups, but one of the two groups I mentioned earlier where we say, I don't really need hope of eternal life. I hope for things in this world, but that other they my eternity is that's all settled and I know I don't I don't think about it.

But Christian hope, the hope of eternal life is a hope based on the forgiveness of our sins. And if you don't think about your sins or recognize them when they're happening or if if they're just if they're just, whatever, you will have no hope. You'll have many other things. You'll have despair. You'll have anger.

You'll have bitterness. You'll have fear. You'll have pride. Lots of pride. But no hope.

And so when the difficulties of life come, your pride and your anger, your despair and your sorrow, they won't serve you well. But hope will serve you well. Paul says in Romans, another passage I didn't put up. Paul says in Romans, I think it's chapter five, that hope does not disappoint. There's this long, like, process of of sanctification that goes on and he describes at the end he comes to hope and he says, and hope doesn't disappoint.

That you try all these things and God runs you through all of these these trials to produce hope. To help you to see that anger and then strength and money and health. When difficulty comes, they don't they don't they don't perform. They don't deliver. Hoping in the Lord is the only thing only possible thing that will help us in those times.

And to have hope in the Lord, we have to see and remember our sins and their cost and that they were paid for. And so as Jesus comes to earth, as we remember his his incarnation, this is what we need to remember. Consider for a moment if God took your sins as lightly as you do. Would Jesus have come to earth? Would he have sent him?

If he thought so, insignificantly of your sins. What can be done? I can't help it. But he did this. Would Jesus have laid aside his glory and come and taken on the form of a of an a baby to suffer and to die for those little sins that don't really bother us too much?

No. If our sins were a big enough deal for Jesus to lay aside his glory and to come in the form of man, then that ought to be a big deal to us and not the sort of thing we easily forget. Not the sort of thing we wallow in, but the sort of thing that that stokes our hope. If we lose sight of that, then we make room for our anger and our despair and our pride to take over. It's hard to keep hold of hope.

I I think that's one of the reasons we don't think about it much. It's hard to it's it feel it feels almost like a feels like a treadmill. Feels like you work and you work and you try and you struggle and you and and and you're like, but I'm not going anywhere. You know, I would submit to you, that's a good thing. Listen to how Hebrews describes our hope.

Okay? This is Hebrews six seventeen to 19. It says, in the same way God desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise, meaning to his people, the unchangeableness of his purpose. He interposed with an oath so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who take refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul.

A hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil. And so what is the picture of our hope in this passage? What does it describe it as? As what? An anchor.

What's the point of an anchor? To keep you from moving. That's the whole point of an anchor. It's to keep you from from being blown away by the sorrows of your life. And so when you feel like focusing on hope means I never get anywhere, I never do anything, nothing ever changes.

I go, that's a feature. That is that is the fruit of hope in your life is that when difficulty comes, you aren't blown away. Knocked down, but not taken away and able to stand back up. The hope that set before us by God was given to us to take hold of so that we would be able to remain and to bear all of life's trials. And so this is part of the Christian life.

We often want the burdens and the trials, the hardships and the sufferings of our life to to expire. And as you get older, you realize they may change, but they don't they don't expire. There's always burdens. And at some point, you realize that whatever the the trials and burdens of life are, they're not a sufficient excuse for you to not hope in God. Your hope will change as you get older, if God's kind to you.

You can't you could just give up hope altogether and and give yourself to despair and sorrow and deny Jesus Christ. But to those who don't do that, to those whom God is merciful to, your hope keeps you. It it it's it it it it plants you and it protects you. Hebrews describes us as having taken refuge from the storms that we would have strong strong encouragement to take hope of the holds hopes set before us. And this hope is an anchor of our soul.

And so if God has you in sorrows and trials, as I imagine throughout your life he will, Hope of eternal life is an anchor to keep you from being swept away. But hope of eternal life is built on your understanding of your need of mercy. If you don't need mercy, you won't have hope. And then when the the storm comes, you'll be as the man who built his house on the the sand. You'll be as the seed that that fell in the rocky soil.

And when the trials of life came up, it says, what about that seed? Having no firm root, anchor, withers. But to the one whose house is anchored into the rock of Jesus Christ, storms will come. Life in this world is not without storms. It is it is not San Diego.

It is not the pretty places. It's often hard. The weather is not always 72 and the light breeze. But to the one who's built their house, their hope on the rock of Jesus Christ, they'll stand. They'll stand.

They'll have hurricane straps. There may be damage, but the house will be there. And so the hope that's set before us is the hope of eternal life through Jesus Christ, and it makes us able to stand through all of life's trials. Paul says in first Timothy, chapter one verse one, he describes himself. He says who he is, and then he describes Jesus Christ in this way.

He says, Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our savior and of Christ Jesus. Does anyone well, it's written up there. I was gonna ask anyone know what it says next, but it's right there. And of Jesus Christ Christ Jesus who is our hope. He's our hope.

He's our hope. We get so distracted by so many things that we hope for. So many things we want, even things we need. But you can't lose sight of this guys. You can't lose sight of it.

Anything else you hope in, it will fail you. It'll be like a bum knee. You'll think it's there and then at some point you'll right when you need it, it's just it's gone. It's it's you're on the ground. The hope of eternal life life through Jesus Christ is our only sure hope.

And it is what should occupy your mind. It should be the foundation that the whole rest of your life is built on. It It should be it should be there in your conversations. It should be there in your work. It should be there at your dinner table.

It should be there in your conflicts. Sure hope and anchor that holds you firm and safe. Pastor, are you saying that we shouldn't care about anything else? That all we should do is just think about this and nothing else? No.

I'm not saying that. But I am saying that this is the foundation of your Christian life. And because it's so easily and often forgotten by us, we ought to be careful. Right? We all want rules.

We just wanna know, is this yes? Is this no? Is this black? Is this white? Is gray.

Mix your black and white together. Okay? Okay? There's all kinds of shades of it. David said at one point in this in the in the Psalms, I don't concern myself with things that are too lofty for me, too too big for me, too weighty for me, too scary for me.

He doesn't say all of this, but this is things that are too big for me. Sometimes are really scary. Sometimes are really frustrating. Sometimes are really discouraging. They're just too big for you to carry.

David says, I don't concern myself with these things. Why? Because he realizes in concerning himself with those things, the true things, the hopeful things, his foundation will be upset. There are times where you say, I can't. I can't right now deal with that.

I can't carry that. I can't worry about that. I can't be concerned with that. Not because it's not important. Not because somebody doesn't need to be concerned about it or I don't need to be concerned with it in the future, but I can't be concerned with it right now because it will consume me.

It will chew me up and spit me out. And however big you are and however tough you are, life will chew you up and spit you out if you let it. And so Christians ought to look to the Lord and say, I'm content to know you and to be known by you. And my hope is that these things which are too big for me, that I can't solve, that I can't bear, that I can't change, that you Lord will take care of them. In your time and in your way and for your glory.

It's not unchristian to take things that are really important and have that disposition toward it. But I'm not supposed to care about it? If you can. What am I talking about? Well, I could be talking about, all of the decisions that you make raising your kids.

You're gonna make a million decisions about raising your kids and educating your kids and and whether or not they're allowed to wear this or do that or go there or say these things or listen to that. You're gonna make all these decisions and you're gonna have to make these decisions. But if those decisions consume you in a way that you can't see anything else, they will make you miserable. And the fact is, whatever you decide won't matter as much as the fact as the fact that you lost your hope. You didn't make your decisions with any hope.

But it's really really important whether my kids where my kids go to school. I agree. I didn't say it wasn't. I just said, there are things that are dangerous to you if they overwhelm you. The same could be said of your finances.

The same could be said of your, health. The same could be said of politics. They're all important. Who's saying they're not important? I'm not.

I'm Maybe there are people saying they're not important. I'm not saying they're not important. I'm not saying they're not very important. But if they consume you, if they undermine your hope to where you can't sleep at night, you need to turn away from them. But if I don't say it, don't worry.

Someone else will. If I don't do it, don't worry. Someone else will. You ought to have an interest in your own spiritual life and your hope in Jesus Christ, and not trade it away for a bowl of porridge. And all of us in very different ways are capable of doing this.

I'm no less susceptible to being consumed by stuff than you are. Maybe different things. Maybe the same things. And so being a Christian doesn't mean you don't care about anything else other than this, but it does mean that you care about this more than anything else. And to the extent that you care about these things and pay attention to them, you'll be better equipped and more fruitful in your other endeavors.

Maybe you were a you who've studied hard for a test at some point. You have to study. I have to study. I have to study. I gotta study.

I gotta practice. I gotta study. I gotta practice. I gotta do you know what I think? I think you gotta sleep.

The law of diminishing returns and all of that. At some point, you're just an idiot if you keep practicing and studying. I'm saying exactly what I mean, John. No. No.

No. Like, these are the this is the way we where we get so caught up in it. I could tell you stories. I'm way over time already. But I could tell you stories of where I've done it and where I've seen people just get so consumed by something.

And it's like, this is not that important. It's just not that important. Of What if I make a mistake? As if you haven't made a ton of them already. As if what you're doing right now isn't a failure.

Our whole lives, like, we get all we we don't have hope in Jesus Christ. We cut the anchor cord, and all of a sudden, we're adrift in the fears and the pressures and the and the anxieties of the world, and it never stops. And it will kill you. It will consume you. It will just swallow you up.

And so at some point, you go, I'm too far into this. It's not good for me. I need to return to my first love. So our fruitfulness in this world, as I said I think I said this earlier. Our fruitfulness in this world is downstream of our hope in the Lord.

Without it, it doesn't really matter where you come down on any particular question. You'll be impotent because you'll be like that house that's built on the sand having no firm foundation, and you will fall. But that's not the Christian that's not a description of the Christian. The Christian stands. The Christian endures.

The Christian perseveres. He remains through everything. And so as we celebrate Jesus birth, let that be your hope. And then go and travel and eat and spend money and talk about politics and whatever else you wanna do. As though Jesus Christ is your hope.

And have joy. Merry Christmas.