Hope for you

During advent, the four weeks that lead up to Christmas, we’ve been thinking about hope. 

They say that the greatest amount of false hope is generated in the first four hours of a diet. Fortunately the hope that comes through the story of the birth of Jesus generates not false hope, but real hope.

Hope for the whole world

In John 3 we read one of the greatest definitions of why Jesus was born.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

What could have been just another conversation between theological heavy-weights–in the blue corner, the well-taught, highly educated Pharisee and in the red corner the carpenter’s son from lowly Nazareth–became so much more. Instead of being drawn into a debate about the law, a discussion about the place of sacrifices or an exploration of who is the greater teacher, Jesus takes his visitor deep into the heart of God’s unfolding mystery.

For God so loved the world shifts the perspective away from a single nation with a single pattern of worship and religious practice. As Max Lucado might have put it:

Aren’t you glad that it doesn’t say: For God so loved the wealthy or the middle-class, the healthy or the beautiful, the intelligent or the Europeans...

He gave his one and only son tells us that it is no longer about us, about what we must do,  but about God and how he reached down into our world.

That whoever believes means that it’s no longer about being born in the right time with the right heritage, but anyone can access the resources of heaven. And it reminds us too that it isn’t about what we do but about what we believe, who we trust to solve our biggest problem to meet our deepest need.

Hope in the darkness

It’s one thing to talk about a hope that reaches out into the whole world, but does this hope truly penetrate my world, your world? How does this great hope reach into the darkness of the world in which we live. More than that, how does it reach down into the darkness of your life. Can this light truly truly penetrate those hidden places in your heart, the places where you keep all those secret fears and secret thoughts, the ones you’d never want anyone to know you have?

The thing about light and darkness is that darkness is not the opposite of light, it’s the absence of light. When you turn a light on, darkness doesn’t stand their defiantly demanding, “Is that the best you can do?” It is immediately driven back. It is forced to retreat to the shadowy corners, the places where the light doesn’t reach. 

The truth is this, if you will let the light of the hope of Jesus flood your life, then it will push our the darkness.

Darkness can never overcome light, but light will always defeat the darkness.

Hope for the future

The night Jesus came may have been just an ordinary night. Ordinary sheep, ordinary shepherds. Ordinary people in an ordinary town in an ordinary province of an ordinary empire. But where God is concerned, nothing is every ordinary. He takes the ordinary and invests it with the extraordinary. And do that night became a history making, history changing night. Angels sang to sheep and shepherds, calendars would change, kings would worry, wise men would make epic journeys. And the future was going to be different. It would no longer be defined by what might be, but would be defined by what God said it would be. 

And that’s your future too, if you want it.

You don’t have to face the future with uncertainty and fear, you can face the future with hope and faith. Even as Jesus faced death he promised this: I am going to prepare a place for you, and if I go, I will come back.

In the ancient near east, when a man got married, he would return to his father’s house and build a house or a room for himself and his new wife. When the father saw that it was ready, he would send the son to get his wife and he would bring her back to the new home that would be theirs.

This is what Jesus is promising, to prepare a place, to build you a home in heaven, if you want it. It’s there, waiting for you. 

All you have to do is say “yes”. Will you say yes? Or will you wait, will you dither? The offer won’t always be there. A day is coming when it might be too late. Wouldn’t it be the greatest tragedy to arrive at the gates of heaven only to discover that there’s a card waiting for you that says, “I called, but you didn’t answer.”

In the end it's a choice only you can make. Only you can decide if you want to face the future with or without the hope that God offers you through his son Jesus Christ. He came to bring you hope, will you accept his offer?

Hope in the darkness

Clive Calver once said you can’t blame the darkness for being dark, it’s its nature to be dark. The problem lies with the light.

What’s the background to Isaiah’s prophetic words in chapter 9?

In chapter 8 the people have rejected God. Because of this he is going to use the king of Assyria to bring abut judgement on the people. In the typically poetic style of Isaiah, the king of Assyria will sweep through the land like a raging river and no matter what plans the people make, they will not succeed because this is God’s doing.

In the end they will try anything to get a solution, they will even consult mediums and spiritists as Isaiah calls them, rather than enquire of God. The end result is that they will stumble around in the gloom and the darkness as they look in the wrong place for solutions. This is how chapter closes:

When men tell you to consult mediums and spiritists, who whisper and mutter, should not a people inquire of their God? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn. Distressed and hungry, they will roam through the land; when they are famished, they will become enraged and, looking upward, will curse their king and their God. Then they will look toward the earth and see only distress and darkness and fearful gloom, and they will be thrust into utter darkness.

Isa.8:19-22

You can't blame the darkness for being dark.

Into this picture of darkness and gloom come the words of chapter 9:

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

Once again it is the grace of God that opens the way to a new beginning. It’s not the sudden change of heart of the people, it’s not some sudden realisation that they have been looking in the wrong place for the wrong answers to the wrong questions, but it’s all about the the grace and mercy of God as he reaches down into their situation to rescue them.

Light breaks into darkness, and everything changes.

What does light do to darkness?

§1 Exposes everything

It’s very difficult to keep anything hidden once the lights are on. Everything becomes visible.

Our problem of course is that we don’t like everything to be exposed. In John 3 we read the verdict:

Light has come into the world but men and women love darkness because their deeds are evil.

You probably don’t think of yourself as particularly evil. Why should you? We prefer to think in shades of grey instead of black and white, we prefer the gloom of half-light rather than the either the full glare of bright sunshine or thick darkness of the night.

But there is no kingdom of gloom only a kingdom of light and a a kingdom of darkness and you must choose between these two not theses three.

§2 Reveals truth

Your word is a light to my path, a lamp to my feet (Ps.119)

I cannot be the only person who sometimes chooses not to put the light on, even when it’s dark, because I know my way to the bathroom, even at night. I cannot be the only person who also discovers that if only I had put the light on, I would have seen the washing basket on the landing before I kicked it with my bare foot. I cannot be the only person who never seems to learn from this salutary experience of pain as a result of stumbling about in the darkness.

When God shed light into our lives, not only do we see the true us, we also get to see the true him. As the light dawns the way ahead becomes clear. 

Isn’t it good to know that we are not destined to wander around in darkness? Isn’t it good to know that God has a plan to bring light into our lives and into the lives of those around us?

Advent, Christmas, is a celebration of God’s gift of light.

While Matthew and Luke open up the story of the birth of Jesus and while Mark dives straight in to the ministry of Jesus, John takes deep into the the heart of God’s purposes as he declares:

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

§3 Isaiah’s outcomes

The dawning of this great light brings with it some great outcomes. It brings:

Growth

Joy

Rejoicing

Lifting of burdens

End to oppression

End to battle

And all because:

A son is born

§4 Jesus the true light

This son to be born was Jesus, the true light as John describes him. He came into the world but the world didn’t recognise him. In fact the world rejected him. But he came anyway.

Having rejected him, the world crucified him, but still he came. Knowing that he would have to suffer as he did, he still came. 

He came so that you and I could experience life in the light.

Jesus said:

I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.

§5 Our response

First step: repentance and faith

Our first response must be to accept God’s offer of a life in the light through Jesus. We must first move out of the darkness and gloom through confession of the dark parts of our lives. The sin of which we are so painfully aware. You might not know it as sin, you might not call it sin, but you know there are things that you have done that run counter to the light of God’s character. By  a simple prayer of confession you can take a step into the light. Second, by a step of faith, you can receive all the benefits of a life lived in the light. Freely God offers you not only the forgiveness you need, but a new life to live. By faith we receive this life.

If you have taken those steps then you are part of the body of Christ, the people of God’s kingdom of light, and we too have a response to make.

Second step: Live in the light

In Ephesians Paul tells us that:

You were once in darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light.

To live as children of the light is to follow the example of Jesus. To become light for a dark world. We are not going to save the world, that’s God’s job, but we are called to live like light.

Third step: Engage in mission

It will be an uphill task. In 2 Corinthians Paul tells us:

The god of this age has blinded the eyes of unbelievers so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus.

But it’s a challenge we must take up because the world has no one else to do it for them.

If the church is not committed to bringing the message of hope to the word by all means possible, then the church has nothing to say to world at all.

We cannot be a people without a message, we cannot be a people who are unconcerned abut the eternal destiny of the people who live in darkness. We cannot be a people to whom the lost simply don’t matter, for whom mission is an inconvenience.

We cannot go one blaming the darkness for being dark.

Jesus calls us to walk in the light, the question is are we willing to follow?