WEEKLY SERMON
MIDWEEK ADVENT, DECEMBER, 2009
Rev. Thomas Kneser
Brothers and sisters in Christ,
What kind of gifts do you appreciate the most?
Are they gifts that you can eat – like a box of chocolates, a tin
of popcorn, or an assortment of cheese and sausage?
Are they maybe the more costly kind of gifts – tickets for a
cruise, the latest plasma TV, a new game system or set of golf clubs?
Perhaps you’re the kind of person who appreciates the more
practical kind of gift – clothing, fashion accessories, or power tools.
Or maybe they are gifts from that special someone – a piece of
jewelry, your favorite perfume or cologne.
In this season of giving, I think I’m pretty safe in saying that
we all enjoy the giving and receiving of gifts, even if we aren’t little
children who can’t wait to see what’s under the Christmas tree.
In our midweek Advent devotions this year we are going to focus
on three gifts that are for people of all ages, gifts that should have
lasting meaning for all of us as people of God.
They are timeless gifts, TIMELESS GIFTS FROM OUR ADVENT SAVIOR
They are expressed in three key words associated with the coming of
Christ into our world. Each
of these words highlights a particular aspect of the season as well as
the blessings that the Christian has through faith in the Savior.
These three special gifts are hope, peace and joy.
Today our focus is on…
HOPE.
We hear from 1 Timothy 1:1,
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of
Christ Jesus our hope…
I.
Hope has to do with the future, something we focus on as look
ahead in life and even beyond this life.
The OT is filled with promises and prophecies that point to the
Savior as the focus of our hopes.
In Genesis there is the sad and tragic story of mankind’s fall
into sin. Satan had tempted
our first parents with false hopes and with the expectation of greater
knowledge – You will be like God!
Adam and Eve were overcome by those deceptive words.
They disobeyed the Lord’s command and were enveloped by the gloom
of hopelessness. They tried
in vain to hide from the Lord, hoping against hope that he would not
find out what they had done.
But our gracious God did know, and he went looking for them.
When he found them, God spoke
the first promise of the Savior that would fuel the hopes of his people
for many years, I will put
enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.
There is hope in those words
with its promise that one of the descendants of Eve would come and
deliver people from death, save them from sin and rescue them from the
power of the devil. In this
one – the Messiah, the Christ – was the hope of God’s OT believers.
Many centuries passed before the coming of that Savior.
Along the way the promise was repeated and expanded when God told
Abraham that he would be the father of countless people and that one of
his offspring would be a blessing to all nations, and this despite the
fact that he and his wife were quite old, past the normal age for
bearing children. But the
apostle Paul tells us, Against
all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many
nations, just as it had been said to him.
He did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God,
but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God.
Jesus himself talked about Abraham’s faith and hope when he
said to the Jews, Your father
Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day; he saw it and was
glad. Read through Hebrews
chapter 11 and you see the long list of OT believers like Abraham who
were sure of what they hoped for
and certain of what they did not see.
This promise, that through this
one Child the whole world would be blessed, served as the beacon of hope
for God’s people for many centuries.
That holy child would be the Savior of the world.
That promised Seed of the woman, that child of Abraham in whom
the world would be blessed, he is our Savior, too.
You and I are a part of the fulfillment of God’s promise to
Abraham. Through our faith
and hope in Jesus we are among those descendants of Abraham, the new
spiritual Israel. We are
sharers in the promise concerning that one particular Descendant, that
long foretold Deliverer born all those years ago.
We are about to celebrate his birth once again.
What a special gift this is, Christ Jesus our hope!
Through him we are blessed beyond imagination: blessed with
pardon from our sin, blessed with victory over Satan, blessed with the
sure hope of eternal life.
No wonder we raise our voices with the saints of all ages to our God and
Savior, because he kept his promise to send Jesus, the sinner’s help and
friend.
Sadly, having such a wonderful hope set before them did not keep
God’s chosen people from sinning or straying into the idolatry and
immorality of their heathen neighbors.
Even after they promised at Mt. Sinai to love and serve God, they
turned and went their own way.
Their hope for the Messiah was all too often cast aside as they
placed their hopes in false gods, in the things of this world.
To get his people refocused God at times gave righteous
correction to his unfaithful people.
They were conquered by enemies, even driven from the Promised
Land. They underwent much
spiritual distress and pain, even questioning whether that hope in the
Lord and in his deliverer would become a reality.
During one of their lowest moments, after thousands had been
carried away into slavery in Babylon, God’s prophet Jeremiah reminded
the people that their hope, even in the worst of times, was still in the
Lord. Through his prophet
God told them, 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.
What better future is there than to know that God is with us,
that he will deliver us!
We’re no strangers to distress and pain, are we?
Many times our thoughts and feelings mirror those of Jeremiah and
the faithful of all ages who have endured great sorrow and suffering in
their lives. And why?
Because we live in a sin-fallen world.
We wonder if we are ever going to get relief.
Can we really have the hope that things will improve?
We, too, may feel somewhat separated from God and isolated at
times, all the while looking for that light at the end of the tunnel.
Perhaps we are wrestling with spiritual weaknesses or struggling
with some physical or emotional pain.
Whatever it may be in your life, your hope is in the Lord, who
has rescued you from your body of death, who has promised grace and
strength in times of trial and distress, and who has assured you that
all things painful and evil will come to an end when he comes again.
That is our sure hope.
That is our firm future.
We confidently pray each and every day for God to come and work
mightily in our lives by his grace.
Throughout the years preceding the birth of Christ, God revealed
through his prophets more specifics regarding the Savior so that the
hopes of his people would burn brighter and brighter.
He promised through Isaiah,
The virgin will be with child
and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.
Through the prophet Micah the Lord even pinpointed the place of
the Messiah’s birth. He
said it would take place in Bethlehem, the birth of the
one who is to be ruler in
Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days.
About 700 years later God sent the angel Gabriel to a virgin named Mary,
announcing that she would conceive the Savior by the power of the Holy
Spirit and would give birth to the Promised One.
Nine months later the offspring Eve had sought, the descendant
Abraham had looked for, the desire of the nations, was born in that
little town of Bethlehem, fulfilling the hopes and dreams of God’s
people.
So what hopes were wrapped up in those strips of cloth and laid
in a manger? The uppermost
hope was that he would crush Satan’s power, his tyrannical rule over the
hearts of humanity through the curse of sin.
From the devil’s first deception that led to sin, we were made
captives and enslaved to darkness in a hopeless, sinful state.
We could do nothing to deliver ourselves from that, a situation
that would have ended with our death in this life and with eternal
separation from God for all eternity.
But with the coming of Christ came the fulfillment of the hopes
of all those OT believers, the arrival of one who could overcome the
devil and break his power, as well as the power of sin and death.
In this child born of Mary, the devil was overmatched because
this Jesus is true God in the flesh, the almighty Lord, the Everlasting
Father, the Prince of Peace.
How did he accomplish it?
It was not with the flick of his almighty hand that he overcame
the devil and broke the power of sin.
Rather, it was with his hands and his feet, first carrying out
his father’s will by offering perfect obedience to all the commandments.
Then he offered those hands and feet to be nailed to the cross.
That’s how he crushed the serpent’s head.
By his life, his death and his triumphant resurrection Jesus
broke Satan’s back and delivered us from his kingdom of darkness.
No longer are you and I in the stranglehold of sin, living in the
dread and hopelessness of death.
No, through faith in Jesus Christ, Peter tells us,
He has caused us to be born
again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the
dead.
Because of Jesus, who is the
resurrection and the life, you and I have the certain hope that we will
live, even though we die, that sin will not get the best of us, and that
we will be with all those who have gone before us and have died in the
Lord. Since Christ is our
hope, giving us the sure expectation of everlasting life with him, we
cling to this hope and hold onto it for dear life.
This is not mere chance or dream or whim.
This is reality, based on a true and living Savior.
That is a most wonderful gift from our Advent Savior.
And it’s a gift, not just for you and me.
It’s a gift for all people, a gift that is our privilege to
share. In his first epistle
Peter encourages us to always be ready to give an answer to anyone who
asks us to give the reason for the hope that we have.
In other words, we are always to be prepared to tell others about
our hope, and why we are certain that God is with us in good times and
in bad, and that he will take us to be with him on the Last Day.
We, who now await Christ’s second coming, we are to tell others
that they can share in the same hope through faith in Jesus by the power
of the Holy Spirit. Give
someone that gift this holy season.
Invite them to our special services.
Many people are receptive to that this time of year.
Give the Holy Spirit the opportunity through the message of the
Savior’s birth to kindle in them the hope that lives in your heart, so
they can share in his gifts as well.
You and I have this hope, that when our long-expected Jesus comes
again, we will be free, free from sin forever.
Then we will no longer be tempted and accused by the devil.
Rather, we will live in glory with all who, like us, have lived
in hope. What a timeless
gift this hope in our advent Savior is.
Treasure it! Share
it. AMEN.