To Sin Or Not To Sin

God Is Light, So What

Intro.: I want to ask a question – before I answer it, I want to make clear I don't really expect you to answer – I want to ask the question to make a point.

1. Here is the question - “Why do you come here week after week?”

2. I can think of several reasons why you are here:

   1. You like the people who are here

   2. You like the preacher

   3. I really hope it is because you love Jesus and you want to express that love.

3. I could ask the same question of me – Why am I here?

   1. I am called to preach

   2. I really like you guys

   3. I hope I am here, you should hope I am here, because I really love Jesus

4. As you can see there are several reasons for what we do.

5. Let me read a short passage in which John discusses why he wrote this short letter.

Read: I John 2:1-6

Pray

Trans: Look at the following:

1. v 3

2. v 4

3. and now 2:1

T.S. Lets look more closely at why John has written this letter. The first verse of chapter 2 lists one reason – with two parts.

1. John writes, first, to let the recipients of this letter know they do not need to sin.

   1. I don't think any one of us would be surprised if John had written, “Do not sin.”

   2. But listen again to what John writes, “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

   3. Did you hear it? – he is writing so that they will not sin.

   4. Let me point two things out from this short sentence.

   5. First, John address his readers as children – no to put them down or to be critical in any way – but he address them as children because he cares for them.

(Ill.) mou teknia – my little children. He is showing his love and concern for the believers. It is the same term that a father might use with his children “mou teknia“– my little children.

6. But there is a more important message here – and by calling his readers “Children” he is saying it as gently as he can.

7. That other message is that the do not need to sin – he is writing so that they “may not sin.”

(Ill.) You know, or most of you know, that my training and theology is that of Methodism and its founder John Wesley. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the theology that has come out of Methodism and John Wesley is a unique characteristic of sin. As Wesleyans read the scriptures, we become very convinced that sin is a choice. We are faced with choices every day – we can do this or we can do that. I can choose a behavior that, to the best of my ability, imitate that of Christ. Or I can choose a behavior that more closely follows what I want – regardless of what God wants. Hopefully those two – what God wants and what I want – are becoming more and more aligned. But I always have a choice. Though, historically, it is mentioned more often by those who follow in the footsteps of John Wesley, there are others groups that also have similar teachings – that Nazarenes, Catholicsⁱ (as best I can discern), some baptists, and whatever our background, many individuals live their lives knowing that “sin” is choosing what I want, rather than what God wants.

8. It would seem to me that this is how John understands sin as he writes – that we do have choices.

(Ill.) All of humankind is torn between choices for good or evil. The Apostle Paul grappled with this dichotomy, this being torn between good and evil, superior and inferior. He cried out, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.… I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me” (Rom. 7:15, 19–20, RSV).ⁱⁱ

1. And if I understand John correctly, his point is that given every choice we are faced with each day, we can chose to not sin.

2. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin.”

1. John also writes to let the recipients of this letter know that God has made provision for them if they do sin.

(Ill.) A few minutes ago I mentioned how John Wesley understood sin. Another great Christian defined sin differently – John Calvin defined sin as any violation of God's will either through act, voice, or state. Those who accept this definition will point out the root meaning of the Greek word for sin, 'amartia, is to miss the mark. It is like an archer aiming at a target – his goal is to hit the target dead center. And any shot that hits anything other than dead center is a miss, he “missed the mark.” Wesley's definition of “a voluntary choice to violate a known law of God” and Calvin; definition, “any violation of God's will either through act, voice, or state” seem to stand apart from each other – let me suggest the answer is that it is not a case of either/or but a simple case of both/and – both definitions are valid.

1. John seems to use this second definition as he finishes writing his thoughts. “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

2. John writes that his readers will not sin – he know that they will. And God has provided a solution.

3. That solution is Jesus Christ. A very wise friend of mine wrote the other day that we need to realize that “the gospel is not 'you do' but 'Jesus did'.”ⁱⁱⁱ

4. If, as John wrote earlier, “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.” Here we have a God that is holy – who has no connection to sin, to darkness. But His people do sin – they do miss the mark. It sounds like bad news. But then God steps in and gives us an advocate – Jesus Christ, the righteous.

(Ill.) Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “If you take Christ out of Christianity, Christianity is dead. If you remove grace out of the gospel, the gospel is gone.”^iv

(Ill.) A lady had a very important lawsuit on hand for which she needed the services of an advocate. She was strongly urged to secure the help of a very prominent and well-known lawyer, but she could not make up her mind to entrust her case to anyone. Time passed on, and at last she was compelled to take steps to secure an advocate, and called upon the great lawyer who had been mentioned to her. He listened while she expressed her wish to engage his help, but in a few minutes he said with a grave face: “Madam, you are too late; had you come to me before, I would gladly have been your advocate, but now I have been called to the bench, and am a judge, and all I can do is to pass judgment upon your case.” Now is the day of grace, and the Lord Jesus Christ is our Advocate, ever pleading the merits of His precious blood, but the day will come when He will be the Judge of sinners, and must pass sentence upon them.^v

5. I guess it comes down to another choice – will we meat Jesus as advocate or as judge. It is a choice we each will have to make.

iCatechism of the Catholic Church. Viewed online on February 12, 2011 at http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p3s1c1a8.htm

iiJones, G. C. (1986). 1000 illustrations for preaching and teaching (8). Nashville, TN: Broadman Press.

iiiSweet, Leonard. Quoting Ed Stetzer on Facebook February 11, 2011.

ivWater, M. (2000). The new encyclopedia of Christian quotations (195). Alresford, Hampshire: John Hunt Publishers Ltd.

vAMG Bible Illustrations. 2000 (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; Bible Illustrations Series. Chattanooga: AMG Publishers.

God Is Light, So What

God Is Light, So What

Intro.: When I was younger, I liked to play with playdough.

1. When I was younger, I remember my mother making homemade playdough.

2. Now, I am not going to make it here, but Playdough requires that you mix two very different ingredients – water and oil. They don't go together very well. But that is what the recipe calls for.

3. When I think of mixing water and oil, I am reminded of the passage that we looked at last week – I John 1:5: This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

4. Light and Darkness go together like water and oil.

Read: I John 1:5-10

Pray

Trans:As we continue our march through I John, remember

1. John is writing from the island of Patmos, where he has been exiled by the Romans because of faith in Jesus Christ.

2. He is the last of the original 12 disciples to be alive – thus, as he speaks, he in some way is speaking for all of them.

3. And he is sharing that which he does not want Jesus followers to forget as they move into the first century nobody around to speak from their direct experience with Jesus.

T.S. During the next few minutes, I want to look at three conclusions that John draws from the fact that “God is light”:

1. The first conclusion is that one cannot claim to be a friend of God and live a life of sin.

   1. John says it this way, “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.”

   2. If we claim to be a believer in this God who is light and in whom is no darkness at all, and we live a life that disrespects Him, live a life that gives no place for Him, then we are liars. That is John's word, not mine.

   3. Need to be careful – John is not saying that Christians do not sin – they do, we do. But a believer does not, will not, be living a live characterized by sin.

   4. If John stopped there – he would be delivering a dark message. But he adds something – something encouraging. It's in the next verse: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

(Ill.) Man calls sin an accident; God calls it an abomination. Man calls sin a blunder; God calls it blindness. Man calls sin a chance; God call it a choice. Man calls sin a defect; God calls it a disease. Man calls sin an error; God calls it enmity. Man calls sin fascination; God calls it fatality. Man calls sin infirmity; God calls it fatality. Man calls sin infirmity; God calls it iniquity. Man calls sin luxury; God calls it lawlessness. Man calls sin a trifle; God calls it tragedy. Man calls sin a mistake; God calls it madness. Man calls sin a weakness; God calls it willfulness.

There is only one remedy for sin—the precious blood of Christ, which was shed for the remission of sins on Calvary’s Cross.ⁱ

1. Listen again to the words of “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.”

2. Whatever we call it, whatever God calls it – He is willing to take care of it when we place ourselves in the hands of Jesus.

1. The second conclusion that John comes to is that we cannot say we have no sin.

   1. I would really like to think I am sinless. I mean, if I were, there would be no arguments – after all, I would always be right. Boy would my life be easier. I suppose Sandra's life would not be so great if I was sinless.

   2. But I cannot say it. Both because I know me and because John makes it clear that it is true - “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

   3. Sadly, there are people around us that will deny their sin. We may even fall into that trap ourselves at times.

   4. But like before, there is still good news. Look at the next verse: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

(Ill.) A college freshman went to the dorm laundry room with his dirty clothes bundled into an old sweatshirt. But he was so embarrassed by how dirty his clothes were that he never opened the bundle. He merely pushed it into a washing machine and when the machine stopped pushed the bundle into a dryer and finally took the still-unopened bundle back to his room. He discovered, of course, that the clothes had gotten wet and then dry, but not clean.

God says, “Don’t keep your sins in a safe little bundle. I want to do a thorough cleansing in your life—all the dirty laundry of your life.”ⁱⁱ

1. Like the college student, we cannot cover up our sins and hope that they are hidden. God knows our sins – they cannot be hidden. But it is only when we come to the point of being honest with God, when we get to the point of confession, that God promises His forgiveness.

2. What are you trying to hide from God? I do not know, but God does. Are you willing to be honest with Him today?

1. The final conclusion that John comes to is that we cannot deny that we have ever sinned.

   1. If we say we are believers, but walk in sin, we are liars.

   2. If we say that we do not sin, we deceive ourselves

   3. Listen to verse 10: “But if we say that we have never sinned, we make God a liar: If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.”

   4. James Boice claims that the statement that we have never sinned is the most dangerous of all the three concerns John has shared.

(Ill.) Let give one example of how this has played out in one person's life. Pete Rose has finally admitted that he bet on baseball games while employed as manager of the Cincinnati Reds, an infraction that produced a lifetime ban from the sport in 1989. Rose’s admission of guilt in his autobiography in 2004 came after almost fifteen years of denying wrongdoing.

He has not stopped confessing. In September 2006, Rose began using his website to personally apologize to each fan he had failed or offended. For only $299 (plus $4.95 for shipping and handling), Pete Rose will send you an autographed baseball that reads, “I’m sorry I bet on baseball.”

The marketing copy on the website says: “Now you can get the baseball collectible everyone’s talking about—Pete Rose’s personal apology for betting on baseball, newly inscribed on an actual baseball—at a fantastic price.”ⁱⁱⁱ

5. Pete Rose apologized, but it went something like this, “I apologize, but it will cost you.” That was the headline that appeared with this story back in 2006. He wanted his fans to pay the price for his wrong – rather than taking responsibility for himself.

6. My hope, my dream, my prayer is that you will take time this week to come before God and lay before Him the sins that moved you away from Him.

7. Rather than saying, I have not sinned – come this week before God and say, “Here is how I sinned.”

Conclusion:

Pray

iAMG Bible Illustrations. 2000 (electronic ed.). Logos Library System; Bible Illustrations Series. Chattanooga: AMG Publishers.

iiGreen, M. P. (1989). Illustrations for Biblical Preaching : Over 1500 sermon illustrations arranged by topic and indexed exhaustively (Revised edition of: The expositor's illustration file). Grand Rapids: Baker Book House.

iiiAssociated Press, “Rose Says ‘Sorry,’ but It’ll Cost You,” Houston Chronicle (September 20, 2006) quoted in Larson, C. B., & Ten Elshof, P. (2008). 1001 illustrations that connect (491). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

God Is Light

God is Light

Intro.: I am not one for art – I know very little about it.

1. Occasionally, an artist stands out.

2. One of my favorite is known as “The Artist of Light”

3. His real name is Thomas Kinkade

4. Here are some examples

5. Notice that light plays an important part of many of his pictures

6. Listen to the words of John

Read: I John 1:1:5

Pray

Trans: I never liked physics – it was the science that I felt least comfortable studying

1. But I liked studying the properties of light

2. I liked setting up mirrors and lenses and filters to see how they would change and alter the image that was being displayed

3. Sandra will tell you that one of the ticks that I still have is trying to see and understand light – she sees me cocking my head, closing one eye, and she'll say “What are you doing? Playing with light again” And nine times out of ten, she will be right.

4. John is going to spend some time in the next few verses telling us about light. He begins by discussing how he got his message.

1. The Message: How it was sent?

   1. Have you ever said anything twice?

   2. Every so often I read a book where a character is in the midst of retelling the same story for the umteenth time – and you can just hear those sitting within earshot saying, “Oh no! Not again”

   3. But you know sometimes it is necessary to re-say something. It may be a different audience, it may be so important that it has to be reheard. For example, E. Stanley Jones, a famous missionary to India, maintained a list of about 20 key ideas that he used to define his ministry. After hearing his list, I built my own list of important topics – and it should not surprise you that those 20 ideas regularly pop up in my preaching. They are important and I think they bear repeating.

   4. Paul did the same thing – he would repeat himself. In fact he did this in I John 1:5 – in the same verse in which he sets up the remainder of the chapter, he also summarizes what he has said in the first part of the chapter.

   5. The first part of I John 1:5 says, “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you ...”

(Ill.) David Jeremiah, a relative well-known TV and Radio preacher once said that someone told him, “Pastor Jeremiah, you will learn in your ministry that if you communicate from your head you may change somebody’s mind. If you communicate from your heart you might change their attitudes. But if you communicate from your life you have the potential of changing their lives.”ⁱ

(Appl.) I mentioned it last week, but, like John, I want to say it again. What we say to another about our faith needs to come from our life, not from our head, not even from our heart, but after our faith becomes integrated into our lives, we are ready to share. Only after our lives have been transformed – and they will be when we meet Jesus.

6. And that is exactly what John is doing. As we said last week, John had spent three years with Jesus from the beginning of his public ministry to Jesus' death. He had also spent 40 days with Jesus after His resurrection. As he shares in the letter, he is sharing from his own life.

(Ill.) The Amish has a long standing tradition that the greatest sin is speaking for God. It is only when we speak from our lives that we are speaking for ourselves. We are speaking about what we have experienced – not what others have told us.

7. And so John closes the first part of his letter – and immediately begins the second part of his letter ...

2. The Message: What did it say?

   1. It is a simple statement, “God is light.”

   2. Light plays an important part in God interaction with His people:

      1. It was the first thing he created in Genesis – and then the stars, sun, and moon, on day 4.

      2. It was by a pillar of light that he led His people from Egypt as they fled Pharaoh’s slavery.

      3. Jesus called himself “The Light of the World.”

      4. Our world needs light; but, but interestingly, heaven does not (see “And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb.”)

(Ill.) Light can tell us a lot about something. I was a chemistry major in college – that was before I began preparing for seminary. But once in seminary, I used that chemistry background to get employment in a medical laboratory that did exams for drugs – both legal and illegal. Now the test for salicylic acid was interesting. Now, I know you have no idea what salicylic acid is – but most of us use it regularly for one thing or another. It is the scientific name for aspirin.

But to test for salicylic acid, aspirin, you add a bit of iron cloride into the sample. It turns purple in the presence of aspirin. The darker the purple, the more aspirin. And you can measure the amount light that goes through the purple and get a good estimate of the quanity of aspirin present. By looking at the light, you can tell something about the sample.

In a similar way, when people see us living in the light of God's love, they can tell something about us.

3. “God is Light” - but there is more. Look at the very end of today's passage - “God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.”

(Ill.) Have you ever thought about it – there is no way to paint a picture of the dark. The minute we begin to see something in the picture, there has to be light. Darkness can have no light, but light can have darkness – except that God makes it clear that where God is concerned, the reverse is also true. When God is present, there can be no darkness in the light.

(Appl.) Yet we feel the dark, all the time. We know its uncertainty, we know the unknown that comes from being in the dark. I've talked about the times that I have walked into our bedroom with the light out – I have this fear of tripping over blankets at the end of the bed, or of a pair of shoes that did not get moved out of the way, or finding the leg of the bed and stubbing my toe. Fear is something we all have experienced at some point – but when I am living close to God, there it does not need to be there.

You might look at it like this – when I am driving and I see flashing red lights and an arm of flashing lights coming down, I know that a train is coming – I know that I need to do something – stop. We can let that feeling of fear that we experience at times act like those flashing lights. Remind us that we need to do something – and that something is “Trust God”.

It is not always easy - but then we can believe God, “God is light and in Hm there is no darkness at all.” And when God is there, there is nothing to fear. Let the very fear we feel, be the flashing red lights that can remind us that God is there.

Conclusion: Let me finish by saying this – I do not know what your dark space may be --

• Maybe it is the dark.

• Maybe it is your health

• Maybe it is your age

• For some it may even be your family

But remember that whatever your dark space is, God will be there to give you light.

Pray

iMorgan, Robert J. Nelson's annual preacher's sourcebook : 2008 Edition. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2007.

A Letter: A First Read

A Letter's First Read

Intro. Mail is part of the 21st century.

1. Maybe you saw the movie “Letters To God” last year – they even came out with a Bible with some of the notes that were in the Bible discussed in the movie.
2. And here is a pile of my mail from this past week.
3. Maybe one of you would like to pay my phone bill.
4. If you lived in the 1st century AD, you may have been handed a letter. You would have been told it was from John the Apostle.
5. It started this way:

Read: I John 1:1-4 Pray

Trans:What would you do if you were alone on an island?

1. All your food was provided
2. Great views of Mediterranean
3. People around all the time
4. So what do you do?
5. John wrote letters – three letters. We call them I, II, and III John
6. Over the next several weeks we will spend time in I John.
7. We will will look at what makes I John unique
8. And what John wanted to the church to know as he waited out his final years.

T.S. As we look at I John 1:1-4, we will discover more about the author, more about the message, and more about his purpose for writing.

1. The Author

1. It is late in the first century – and a letter begins to be circulated among the church. But in that letter, no where does John claim to be the author.
2. But that has been the church's claim from early in its history.

(Ill.) John was unique – he was the last of the disciples to die. Rather than being killed – he had been exiled to Patmos. Patmos was traditionally a Greek Island, but by the time of Jesus, had become essentially a Roman site to exile its prisoners – that is why we find John there.

3. John was not only speaking for himself. Notice that uses the word “we” - the letter was not just his. He is speaking not only for himself, he was the final voice of the original twelve apostles. He is the last of the men that had spent three years living, watching, listening to Jesus. He was there when Jesus died. And, perhaps most importantly, John was there when Jesus rose from the grave and ascended to return home to His father.
4. Thus John's voice was his own and that of all the twelve. But as he wrote, John also spoke for someone else – he spoke for God.
5. What John wrote came from his heart, it represented the teachings of the twelve disciples, but it also reflected the work of God in his heart.

(Appl.) I am a firm believer in the “inerrancy” of scripture. Inerrancy is the conviction that God has so prepared the writers of scripture, that when they write, that what is put onto paper is what God intended to write. It is true for Genesis, it true of the Gospel writers, it is true of John as he writes his last letter. Inerrancy means that we can trust the scriptures. They give us what God wanted us to have. And from them we are lead to live lives modeled after his plan for His world.

2. The Message

1. I am not going to discuss everything that John discusses in the five chapters of I John.
2. But in these four verses before us this morning, there is very important point to remember.
3. Here it is – John is not here to teach us theology, but he is here to help us understand what he has experience of Jesus Christ.
4. In these four verses, John tells us that what follows comes from what he has seen, from what he has touched, and what from he has heard.
5. This is no fiction book. It comes from his life.

(Appl.) I have to admit that sometimes it is hard to talk about the lives we have lived. Privacy is something that the modern American strive to maintain. We all carry a load that can hurt to share – But there are two times when sharing our past can be of help:

1. The first is when we share with God. I mean he already knows our past – and only as we let him take that load that we carry can we begin to experience the healing that he offers. There is no hiding from Jesus – but when we are honest with Him, we begin to let go of that baggage, we begin to let go of that load that we have been carrying. And the second reason for sharing our past makes no sense till the first has occurred.
2. The second takes a bit of courage and great deal of sensitivity. When God has dealt with our past, when we have experienced God's healing, when we have lived with the freedom that God has given us, sometimes our past can be of help to another. We don't tell our story to tell it – but we might choose to tell it when it will let another know that same freedom.

6. So, John opens up his life in this letter – sharing what he has seen, heard, and touched, what he has experienced, as he has walked with God.
7. Though the book will introduce us to some theology, it was not written to be a theology book.
8. The message of I John is rooted in the life of John the apostle. As we study and read over the next few weeks, I hope that we never forget this.

3. The Purpose

1. So we have John, writing from his own heart as well as from that of the other apostles and from God's heart. He writes about the things that he has seen, touched, and heard. But we have said nothing, yet, about why he is writing.
2. John suggests three answers:
3. The first we have already hinted at – he is writing to introduce us to Jesus – what he has seen, heard, and touched. Sometimes, I think, there are those who use the phrase “meet Jesus” too loosely, but John really wants you to know the Jesus he knows. Nothing hid, no surprises – just the Jesus he spent three wonderful years with. The Jesus who he will spend eternity with – John wants you to know him.
4. But there is another purpose – look at verse 3, “that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.” John is writing so that you can join the family – the family of God.
5. Or, if you are already a member of God's family, so that you can be more faithful member of that family. He wants to prepare us to live as believers in a world that does not believe in God.
6. Finally, he writes in verse 4 that he writes because he wants his own joy to be “complete.”
7. When we serve another, when we help another, it is satifying – it is joyful. What more joy could there be but in helping lead others to eternity in Christ's presence.

(Ill.) Joy does not come from what we do – it comes from living close to Jesus. Here is John, exiled to an island in the middle of the Mediterranean, but he finds joy. If you find yourself lacking joy, ask yourself where God is? What role is He playing in your life right at that point in time?

Conclusion:

Pray

Hope In A Future

     Hope In A Future     

Introduction: As we read and think about great Christmas passages of the Bible, one of the things we need to do is to resist the influence of our culture to trivialize Christmas and its powerful meaning for our lives.

1. One of the true message of Christmas is about hope.
2. At Bethlehem, for today, and for tomorrow.
3. Hope is one of the greatest messages of the Christmas story. Incredibly, it is one of the greatest needs of the human heart.
4. Sometimes in English the word “hope” describes a wish.
5. But in the Bible hope is a kind of confidence.

Read: Luke 1:39-55 Pray Tran: Edward Mote was born into poverty on January 21, 1797, in London. His parents, innkeepers, wouldn’t allow a Bible in their house, but somehow Edward heard the gospel as a teenager and came to Christ.

He eventually became a skilled carpenter and the owner of his own cabinet shop.

“One morning,” he recalled, “it came into my mind as I went to labor to write a hymn on the ‘Gracious Experience of a Christian.’ As I went up to Holborn I had the chorus: On Christ the solid Rock I stand / All other ground is sinking sand. During the day I had four first verses complete, and wrote them off.”

In 1852, Edward, fifty-five, gave up his carpentry to pastor the Baptist Church in Horsham, Sussex, where he ministered twenty-one years.

He resigned in 1873, in failing health, saying, “I think I am going to heaven; yes, I am nearing port. The truths I have been preaching, I am now living upon and they’ll do very well to die upon.” Today his hymn, “The Solid Rock,” is still popular with Christians around the world: “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness.”

T.S. Let’s look together at the lessons about hope that Christmas brings:

1. Hope is the conviction that God will fulfill his promises (1:45).
1. When Mary the mother of Jesus meets her cousin Elizabeth, she says: “Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” (Luke 1:4)
2. That’s the language of hope.
3. Hope is knowing that what the Lord has said to you will be accomplished even though we have little direct evidence that it will happen.

(Appl.) Have you ever been disappointed about something you really hoped for? Was it a gift at Christmas? A person that you had hoped to spend the rest of your life with?

4. We need the confident expectation that God can be relied on to fulfill the hopes He has awakened in our hearts through the promises of His Word.
5. And that leads us to our second point this afternoon:

2. Hope trusts in God in spite of problems (2:25).
1. The whole Christmas story takes place against the backdrop of all kinds of serious problems.
2. Yet its entire message is filled, not only with deep happiness in the midst of great darkness, but also profound hope in the face of perplexing problems.
3. For example, “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 upon him” (Luke 2:25).
1. Simeon was waiting and believing.
2. That’s hope.
3. Simeon’s hope was not based on a denial of the problems of the day but rather on a decision to trust in God despite the problems of the day.

3. Hope Trusts God to Transcend Understanding and Expectations (Luke 1–2).
1. Mary, Joseph, Simeon, the shepherds, and all the others in the Christmas story are not given full explanations that describe in detail how God will fulfill His promises.
2. Mary and Joseph don’t understand the spiritual and biological details of the miracle of the virgin birth.
3. Simeon doesn’t know precisely how this little baby will be a light of revelation to the Gentiles and the glory of his people Israel.
4. But Mary, Joseph, and Simeon do not allow the limitations of human understanding to determine the height of their hope in God.

(Ill.) Have you watched a candle? If I were to light it right here, it would not appear very bright – in fact you wonder what good is that candle? But if we were to wait till the sun goes down, we might say that the candle adds “atmosphere” to the room. And if we waited till it was really dark, we might find that the candle actually gives us enough light to read by.

5. Hope trusts God to fulfill His promises in ways that transcend our understanding and expectations.

4. Hope waits for God to accomplish His will in His way (2:28–30).
1. One of the most revealing things about this man, Simeon is the way he describes his own relationship to God: “Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace” (v. 29).
2. The word “Lord” is “despota”. It is the word from which we get the English word despot.
1. It is not the common word for Lord that is found throughout the Bible.
2. Though a despot is thought of as cruel or mean, that was not its original meaning. It does mean that Simeon has an absolute master who has complete rule over the lives of those under him.
3. To hope in God for Simeon is not to come to God with his agenda and ask God to bless it and “hope” that He will do it.
4. It is to come to and ask God for His agenda and ask Him to bless it.

(Appl.) In every life something rules as sovereign. What is it that rules as sovereign in your life as you prepare for Christmas? Where do you place your hope?

5. Hope does not disappoint (1:45-47).

1. The exchange between Elizabeth and Mary shows how hope does not lead to disappointment, but sees the fulfillment of God’s promises for our greater good and His greater glory:
2. Remember the words of Elizabeth“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!”
3. And Mary said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior” (vv. 45–47).
4. Mary trusted the promises for good reason.
5. They were all fulfilled in Christ as He was born that first Christmas in a manger with heavenly signs and hosts, with shepherds and wise men bowing at His feet, with kingly gifts, and so much more than Mary could have expected; not to mention His ultimate role as Savior.

Conclusion: As we move through this holiday season, I hope that you will remember that Christmas is about HOPE

1. Not for what we want
2. But for what God wants

Pray