Sunday,, November 30
2025-11-30
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca5dFr1qAZ4

Oh, you weren't here. last week, that's why. All right, so today we're beginning the season of Advent. Advent just simply means arrival, and it's a season of preparation. We sort of look in two directions as we come to Advent. We look back to the birth of Jesus, but we also look forward to when He comes again. And so in many ways, we're sort of in between that place where we have been rescued and we have been saved, but we are still waiting for the day when everything is fully made right. Now, the first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday where we remember the theme of hope. And so throughout the next four Sundays, the church throughout history has remembered the hope that we have in Christ, the peace that we have through Christ, the joy we have in

Christ, and the love that has been shown to us by Christ. And the candle that we will light in just a few minutes is the prophecy candle that looks forward in hope to all the great things that God has promised. So we're going to begin with a word of prayer and a Scripture reading, and then we'll introduce a new song that we're learning this year. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that there is hope while we wait. We thank you that you hear our cries, that you know our sorrows, that you remember your covenant and that you know us fully and that you come to save us. So we just ask that you would lift our eyes this morning to hope that you would strengthen our hearts, that you would give us the energy that

we need to serve you, to be reminded that you don't just call us, but you also send us out with the good news. So help us as we seek to proclaim that first to our hearts and then to those around us and ultimately to the world that you would help us be proclaimers of the good news about the birth of your son. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We're going to read this morning from Lamentations chapter 3. We read this a few weeks ago, but it is a helpful verse, especially as we're focusing on hope. So if you would be standing with me, and we'll read this together. But I call this to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. His mercies never come to an end.

They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him. This is God's word. So we're going to begin by learning a new song this morning. If the kids want to gather in the back, we're going to learn a song called Sing We the Song of Emmanuel. It contains some familiar carol elements, but it also contains sort of a deep and abiding picture of God being with us and our hope there. So we'll kind of learn that as we go this morning. So we're going to go ahead and start by singing that. It has a little bit of an introduction.

Sing me the song of Emmanuel This the Christ who was longed foretold Low in the shadows of Bethlehem Promise of dawn now our eyes behold God most high in the manger lay Lift your voices and now proclaim Great and glorious, love has come to us Join now with the most of heaven Come to welcome Emmanuel King who came with no crown or throne Helpless he lay the invincible Maker of Mary, now Mary's son Hold on wisdom to save us all Shepherds, sages, before you fall Grace and majesty, what humility Come on, let me adore you We'll be right back. and peace for the weary heart. Lift up your heads for your king has come. Sing for the light overwhelms the dark.

Glory's shining for all to see. Hope alive, let the gospel ring. God has made a way. He will have the grace. Tell the world his name is Jesus. Glory's shining for all to see. Hope alive, let the gospel ring. God has made a way. He will have the grace. and our world's name is Jesus

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Thank you. The Lord is come. Let her receive her King. Let her be our preparing room. And to heaven and nature sing. And to heaven and nature sing. And to heaven and heaven and nature sing.

Joy to the earth, the Savior reigns. Let men their songs employ, while fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy, repeat, repeat the sounding joy. No more let sin and sorrow glow Nor thorns infest the ground He goes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found Far as the curse is found Far as the curse is found He rules the world with truth and grace, and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness, and the wonders of His love, and the wonders of His love, and the wonders, wonders of His love. You may be seated. We're going to move into our time of prayer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

As we come to our time of the service where we seek to turn our eyes more fully and live more deeply in light of what God has called us to do, we want to come this morning repenting of those areas in which we have placed our hope in other things. And in Jeremiah chapter 2, it says this, For my people have committed two evils, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. The picture there is not just God's indictment of his people's disobedience and turning aside to their own way, but it is also a picture of the emptiness of putting our hope in anything other than in Christ, turning away from the one who is filled with living water to make for ourselves something that holds no water.

And so let's go ahead and go to God in prayer. Father in heaven, we confess that we have sought hope, often in what is empty or temporary or fleeting and fragile. We have turned to our own strength and our own plans and our own desires. So help us this morning to be reminded that you are the source of true water, the living water that takes away our thirst and satisfies the depths of our soul. So restore our hope together this morning. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I want us to read together from 1 Peter chapter 1, if you would just go ahead and read with me. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope

through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. And so we're going to sing Living Hope, and then we are going to move into Christ our hope in life and death in order to prepare us to come to the table. How great the chasm It lay between us How high the mountain I could not climb In desperation I turned to heaven, spoke your name into the night. Then through the darkness, your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul. The work is finished, the end is written, Jesus Christ, my living heart. Who could imagine so great a mercy? What heart could fathom such boundless cross? To the God of ages Down from glory To bear my sin And bear my shame The cross is broken I am forgiven The King of kings Called me His own

Oh, beautiful Savior, I'm yours forever. Jesus Christ, my with you, all. Hallelujah, He's the one who set me free. Hallelujah, death has lost its good for me. You have broken every chain There's salvation in your name Jesus Christ, my living hope Then came the morning that sealed the promise Your buried body began to be Out of the silence, the boring lion declared that faith has no claim on me. Then came the morning that sealed the promise, your buried body began to grieve. Out of the silence, the pouring light, declare the grief has no claim on me, Jesus has the victory on me.

Alleluia, praise the one who set me free, alleluia, the end of the day. Alleluia, praise the one who set me free, alleluia, the end of the day. Yes, I'll be standing in the name of Jesus Christ, my living Lord. Jesus Christ, my living Lord. Oh, God, you are my living Lord.

It is our hope in life and death Christ alone, Christ alone What is our only confidence That our soul holds our day What comes apart from his command And what will keep us to the end The love of Christ in which we stand Oh, we'll sing hallelujah Our hope spends eternal Oh, say hallelujah Now and ever we confess Christ our hope and love and love The truth can cause a troubled soul God is good, God is good Where is His grace and goodness grown? In our great Redeemer's blood Who holds our faith when fears arise And above all the child Who sends the waves that bring us now Unto the shore of the rock of Christ Oh, sing hallelujah, our hope strength is eternal. Oh, sing hallelujah, now and then we confess, Christ, I will be alive for you.

And through the grave, what will we sing? Christ, he lives. Christ, he lives. And what reward will heaven bring? Everlasting life within. Then we will rise to meet the Lord. Then sin and death will be destroyed. And we will feast in endless joy when Christ is ours forevermore. Oh, say, hallelujah, our hearts praise eternal. Oh, say, hallelujah, now that we can face. Christ our hope and life and death Oh, sing hallelujah Our hope is eternal Oh, sing hallelujah Now and ever we confess Christ our hope and life and death Now and ever we confess Christ, I will be in love with you.

Thank you. so what are we waiting for you can ask yourself excuse me if you had to name it what would you be waiting for can you put a name on it we are waiting for our celebration of Jesus' birth and we are also waiting for the return of Jesus getting into Brandon's sermon the Old Testament writings we find God's people waiting waiting for the deliverance from slavery in Egypt the Hebrew nation cried out to God for help God heard them and sent a reluctant deliverer in the name of Moses God has seen their suffering and sent a man to do his will for his people then in Isaiah chapter 9 it's foretold of a child that's going to be born who would take the weight of all people for all times upon his shoulders

as in the writings in the Old Testament we're waiting we know that God is long suffering which means he'll get around to it in his time not mine we know that God will act in his own timetable. And we will most likely always be, what else? Impatient in that waiting. Advent is us waiting year after year from now until the day we celebrate our Savior's birth. We are also waiting for God's Son, our Savior, to return. And sadly, though, on that day of his return, we will not be ready. That's a given. But thankfully, we have already won that battle. Jesus came into the world on God's timetable. He came to teach. He came to die. He came to be risen up from the dead and then to ascend to God's right hand. And one day, God will send our Savior back to claim his people

and usher them into a kingdom that we can't even imagine. We can have our imaginations run wild, but we don't know what it is, and it's probably a whole lot better than we can imagine. But through his grace alone, God's Messiah, though, will come, and he will take us home. On the first day of the week, we always come around this table to renew the strength that God's spirit needs and that spirit dwells within each of us. Let us pray for the emblems, please. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that you have thought way ahead of us. We cannot think that far ahead, but Father, you have brought all things to be. You bring all things around to your timetable the way you want them. It is up to us to be patient. And, Father, as we take these emblems this morning,

the bread, this little wafer that represents our Savior's body that was given there on the cross, and the juice that, Father, when we take, it is a representation of his blood that was shed, his lifeblood run from his body, and he died on that cross. Father, we thank you for all of these things, as bad as it may seem in our own minds, but it had to be done because we cannot save ourselves. Guide us in this this morning. Be with us as we partake of these emblems. In Jesus' name we ask. Amen. If you would please partake of the emblems of our Savior, this small waper that represents our body of the Lord.

And this juice, which represents the blood of our Lord, that was shed of all, if it's the best word you can come up with, it ran from his body, his blood, on our behalf and our behalf alone. Please drink. And Lord, we come back to you in prayer. Heavenly Father, there is so much that you've already done for your people, for mankind as a whole. You've already done many things. Many have missed it, and many have gone on not knowing you and doing what you're doing right now. You're still with us. You are always with us. We have your spirit within us. And, Father, what you are doing is, again, at your timetable and not ours, as impatient as we may be. And we know that you will continue to do for us that we cannot do.

You've already sent your Savior in our behalf to take the sins of the world upon himself. And, Father, without that, we would have no hope. But through your grace, we have the hope of eternity in a place that we can only imagine. Guide us and direct us this week as we go out into the world, not allowing the world to come upon us, but, Father, allowing us to look to you as a way around it, through it, over it. It makes no difference as long as we follow the path that you've set through. Guide us, direct us in all that we think, do, and say here this morning and through the week. In Jesus' name we ask and give thanks. Amen. Just a couple of announcements as we get ready to dive in this morning.

If you would like to follow along, there are handouts in your bulletin. You can follow along with our message this morning. Additionally, we have some devotions there on the back table next to everything. They're devotions that will take us through our time together in Advent as we approach the joy of Christmas. Also, some of us are maybe visual learners, or we need something tactile to sort of help us remember. Some of us are just real forgetful, and we need to see reminders in front of us all the time. So we have some sets of Advent blocks, and each block has a symbol on it that matches the devotion for the day. So those are, I didn't really have a good place to set them, so they are in these sort of brown paper gift bags here on the front seats.

So there's 25 blocks in there that'll match the devotions. We'll also have the devotions posted on our website, as well as a few other places online as well. So they're sort of short, designed to be done with your family or with yourself or however you choose to do it as we prepare our hearts to celebrate Christmas together. So before we dive into the book of Exodus, we're going to go ahead and have a word of prayer. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and for grace and thank you for the hope that is found in him. Just be with us this morning as we walk through the wilderness with your people, that you would help us to see the power of hope. And as we walk through this time, in between the first coming of your Son and his return,

and a time that so often to us feels like the wilderness, help us refresh our souls, encourage us, nourish us, and help us to see your hope. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So probably most of us can understand that there is a difference between waiting and waiting, right? There's kind of an everyday waiting that we do all the time, right? We wait for coffee in the drive-thru. We wait for the stuff we ordered to finally be delivered. Maybe it's family arriving for the holidays, and we're excited to see them, and we're waiting for them to arrive. Maybe you're in the car on the way to somebody's house for the holidays, and you have kids, and they're in the back going, are we there yet? Every few minutes, right? The first kind of waiting, this sort of everyday waiting, can be a little bit annoying, specifically

when you're sitting at the green light. The person in front of you is not going, and you just want them to proceed so you can get to where you want to go. Generally, although this waiting is annoying, it's often not very painful and where we struggle with everyday waiting comes because we struggle with patience. There's a deeper and different kind of waiting that I want to talk to you about this morning. It goes much deeper. It feels much heavier. It's the kind that makes our chest tight or our stomachs flip. It's the kind of waiting we find deep in the uncertainty or maybe longing or maybe fear. Maybe we're waiting for answers that we don't have. Maybe we're waiting for God to move, and we have been praying and praying, and we are still waiting and waiting.

Waiting in this way is much more difficult. It's a wilderness kind of waiting, and we are, as a people, not just now, but throughout history, historically very bad at this kind of difficult waiting. The difficult waiting without hope leads to incredible brokenness. In fact, if you walk through the wilderness between Egypt and the promised land with God's people, you see that time and time again in the difficult moments of waiting, when they take their hope away from focusing on God, it leads to massive brokenness. And the same is true for them and for us. So for example, is they're getting ready to go into the promised land, right? This group of spies comes back and goes, everybody's really tall and they're good at fighting. And in that moment, they see all of the problems and none of God's provision in the past and none of his promises for the future.

And so sometimes when we wait without hope, what we see are the problems instead of God's provision. And sometimes we fear our enemies instead of trusting God's promises. Or in some cases where we're called to wait just like God's people in the wilderness where they wait for about 40 days, which while it seems long in the big scheme of things is not that long, they turn to a false God. We complain when things get hard, and we rely on ourselves instead of trusting in God's power. And so instead of waiting in brokenness, what I want to call us to this morning is a different kind of waiting, a waiting that comes from God and is based in hope. It's the kind of waiting that the psalmist talks about in the 130th Psalm, where he says, I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,

And in his word, I hope my soul waits for the Lord more than for the watchman in the morning, more than the watchman for the morning. And I love the picture that's found in this psalm, because here is a watchman who's been awake all night. He's no doubt tired. His eyes have been straining against the darkness, and he has been faithful in that darkness. But his eyes look forward to the sky for that first shade of color to change, because he knows even in the midst of the darkness there is hope and that the morning is coming. When we talk about this kind of hope and this kind of waiting, we're not talking about sort of a bored sitting kind of waiting, but a hopeful and expectant where the darkness seems smaller because we know that the morning is coming. Advent for God's people is for waiting.

The word itself means arrival, and when we celebrate Advent, it's not just the moment of arrival, but it's the season leading up to it, that waiting for the arrival of our Savior. And Advent throughout history is one of the ways that the church has said that God works while we wait. You see, Advent teaches us to wait not in fear or in panic or in self-reliance, but to wait rather in hope. Much like Simeon and Anna, as they are waiting for the consolation of Israel. One's a priest, one's a widow, and they have been waiting for decade after decade and ultimately end up holding that salvation in their arms. Contrasted to Israel in the wilderness, whose fears and desires and impatience and whose enemies and whose self-projects and all their plans lead them in the wrong direction.

So here's sort of the invitation as we begin Advent. If we're going to wait, and we all are going to wait, we're going to wait, here's my prayer, with the promises of God, not in the strength of what we can do, but with hope instead of fear. And so here we are at Advent, and we're going through a series called Christmas in the Wilderness, or Wandering the Wilderness, or Advent in the wilderness. The big theme here is the wilderness. And what we're going to do is take a look at the book of Exodus as God's people have left Egypt. They're on their way to the promised land. And we're going to put that together with the beginning chapters of the gospel and see how their wilderness is met in their hope and peace and joy and love found in what God has

done for them in the same way that our wilderness is met in the arrival of Christ. And so we're going to begin where a lot of stories begin, and that is in the darkness of despair. We're going to be in Exodus chapter 2. I'm just going to read a couple verses, beginning in verse 23. During those many days, the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery, and they cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God, and God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, and with Isaac, with Jacob, and God saw the people of Israel, and God knew. Do you see where the despair begins during those many days? These are the days following that miraculous and providential story of Joseph. And then a king arises who does not know Joseph, who does not appreciate his

contributions and day after day after day for 400 years God's people struggle you see the struggle of despair does not begin when God is absent because we know that he is not the problem is that we feel like in the silence sometimes that God is not there another way of saying that is maybe like this that God's not absent but sometimes our hearts feel that way and it's not really about a moment of struggle or a moment of pain but that kind of struggle and that kind of pain that bells and bells and bells and is added to until ultimately we find ourselves struggling and staggering under the weight of that pain and for God's people I imagine that this change happens sort of gradually at first. By the time we get to Exodus chapter 2, it's bricks and bricks

and expectations and labor and slavery and cruelty, and a new king arises, and it's bricks and bricks and labor and slavery and cruelty, and a new Pharaoh arises, and it's the same thing and the same bricks and the same labor and the same cruelty, just with a different ruler. And what we find here is that God's people are groaning in the dark, and the people of Israel groan. And I want you to understand that our groaning under the weight of our despair and our struggle ultimately is not the problem. They are groaning because of their slavery. And we might think that groaning and crying out under this struggle is some sort of weakness, or maybe that it's somehow sinful, but the Bible does not treat groaning in that manner. In fact, Romans 8 talks about how all

creation is groaning under the weight of brokenness and darkness and despair, and our souls are groaning so much so that we don't know how to pray. And the Holy Spirit has to come alongside us and pray on our behalf because our groanings are so deep. You see, groaning is a way of expressing our hurt. It's a wordless prayer for help. And notice, right, that's what they did. They took their groanings and they put words to them. Israel groaned because of their slavery and they cried out for help. And I want you to understand that it is okay to groan under the weight of your burdens. And I want you to see what God does. First of all, it says, these four verbs that happen here, we'll see repeated this morning throughout our message, is that God hears their

groaning, that God heard their groaning. There's no confusion or hesitation in God's response. He didn't miss their call. He wasn't busy doing something else. His phone wasn't out of battery. He wasn't in one of those situations where sometimes I find myself where things have to get louder and louder until they get my attention. What it says is that God heard their groaning, that he was aware. There's no confusion or hesitation. And then it says this, that God remembered his covenant. This is not how we sometimes remember things, right? Where we have to be reminded because we totally forgot what we were supposed to be doing. When we hear about God remembering in Scripture, what we're hearing and what we are to understand is that God acts in accordance with the promises he made. That when it says God remembered, it's that God goes to those

promises and begins to fulfill what he has said he would do. Maybe another way of saying that is that God puts his plan into action. And when you hear that, that God remembers his covenant, what you are seeing is a signal that God is taking those promises that he has made and he is beginning to fulfill them. In fact, these promises go all the way back to Abraham in Genesis chapter 15. God says to Abraham, know for certain your offspring will be sojourners in a land that's not theirs, and they will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. But I will bring judgment on the nation they serve, and afterward they shall come out with great possessions, or as Joseph prophesied, I'm about to die, but God will visit you, and he will bring you up out of this land into the land he swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And so God, first of all, hears. He doesn't delay. He's not distracted, but he hears when his people cry secondly he acts in accordance with his promises and third he saw right there's no hesitation or confusion in his response about God seeing what we mean is that God knows what's happening right he's not surprised or unaware he's not startled at a turn of events in fact what you find is that this is part of his plan in the fourth verb we see God taking action it just simply says this, and God knew. I want you to know that God's work in your life is more than just some sort of intellectual understanding, right? It's a closeness that comes near to us, that comforts us in the midst of our struggle. And I want you to see before anything has changed

in the Israelite situation, right? There's still slaves in Egypt. They're still making bricks. They're still suffering cruelty. And in the midst of that, nothing in their situation that they can see has changed, but God hears. God remembers. He puts his covenant into action. He sees and he knows their hurts. And I want you to know that God is at work in the darkness of our despair. But because it's darkness, we don't always see it or feel it. Let me just give you four very quick ways in which we can live faithfully in the midst of this kind of darkness. First of all, remember who God is, not just how we feel in this moment, right? Because our feelings can change based on how the day is going, right? Things are going well. Things are going smoothly. We're

feeling well. We're feeling hopeful and joyful. And then we hit an immediate roadblock. It doesn't have to be a big roadblock, right? We run into a little bit of trouble and all of a sudden, everything is awful. Everything is broken. And the problem is because we see these little obstacle is so big, it throws everything into chaos. And what happens is this happens to us spiritually, right? In the moment where we feel discouraged and broken and fearful and maybe overwhelmed and we're suffering and we're groaning out, right? We're looking at the moment rather than at who God is. The second way to live faithfully in the midst of this kind of darkness is do what the Israelites, that they groaned toward God, not away from them. The problem isn't ever that we're groaning, it's that we're grumbling, right? It's the difference between a child, like maybe somebody

else's child. I don't know. I don't know if I've experienced this, right? Here's the difference between groaning towards and grumbling. So the grumbling comes when a child comes and they go, I'm hungry. You don't feed me. You don't care about me. There's no snacks that I like. My life is terrible. That's grumbling, right? Groaning is coming in and going, I'm so hungry, can you help me find some food? And so often as Christians and as people, and even as churches, right, we tend to grumble rather than groan. Everything's bad, nothing's good, I'm discouraged, I'm upset, rather than running toward God and throwing ourselves upon His mercy. Third is this. Resist the temptation to take matters into your own hands. Self-made rescue attempts almost always become a disaster. If you want some examples, this is the Bible.

Just start in Genesis, and you'll find it at every turn from Abraham and Sarah and Hagar. Moving into the Exodus, God says wait. The people who have waited now for 400 years, they can't make it more than 40 days before they head down to the God Emporium and pick out a new God into the golden calf. You see it in Joshua, not with Joshua himself, but with the people who seek their own plans instead of God. You see it with Saul, who can't wait for the offering, and over and over again throughout Scripture, There is a temptation to take matters into our own hands. And fourth, we want to anchor ourselves in the promises of God. Fear only ever sees for us disaster. Hope rests in God's covenant. The one who has promised to never leave us or forsake us.

The one who promised to finish the work that he has begun. The one who promised to be near to the brokenhearted. one who says nothing can separate you from his love the one who promises to come again and so first we find ourselves in the darkness and then we come to this remarkable amazing wonderful news then the Lord said i've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and i have heard their cry because of their taskmasters i know their suffering and i have come to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and bring them out of that land to a good and a broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey. Just a few verses before we found ourselves in darkness and despair, and now we are seeing a God who steps into that darkness

with light. And we need a little context for what's happening here. Moses has been raised up with God through some faithful midwives, through some good old-fashioned civil disobedience and not killing this young man in God's providential care of allowing his mother to raise him for several years. He has now fled from Egypt after 40 years for killing a man. He's lived now in the wilderness in Midian. He has a wife and a family and a flock. And at 80 years old, he's in the wilderness and he sees a bush that doesn't burn up. God introduces himself. I'm paraphrasing. Moses has a bit of a breakdown and we come to this text where God says, I have seen, I have heard, I know, and I have come down to deliver them. You see that God is not far away, right?

These words that we just read, they're not words from a far off God. They show us that God is deeply and personally involved in the troubles of his people. God is moving toward his people before his people move toward him, right? And this is the record of Scripture, God in Genesis chapter 3. Adam does not go seeking God. God goes to get Adam. And the same is true in Bethlehem. The wonderful promise of God being with us isn't just truth. It's God's pattern of dealing with us. From Adam and Eve in the garden, to God speaking to Noah, to Abraham, to Jacob, in the fire in Sinai, the dwelling in the tabernacle, filling the temple with his glory, empowering his people with his spirit. God has been with his people. And then we come to this, and the word became flesh,

and dwelt among us as we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. And behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. I want you to understand that Exodus 3, as we see Moses in the burning bush, that this is not just a piece of history, but this is a preview of what God would do for his people. God says, I have come down, right? This is foreshadowing. The burning bush is preparing us for the manger. And when it says God with us, what that means is that God knows our suffering from experience. The word in Hebrew means a deep, intimate, close kind of knowing, that God is not just aware of

our suffering, but he enters into it. And we see that literally in the life of Christ. Just like us, he was hungry. Just like us, there were times when he was lonely, he knows grief, betrayal, tears, pain, and even death. When we hear about God being with us, this means that God does not watch us from a distance. It means that God who walks our road, bears our burdens, carries our sorrows, and this is the foundation of our hope. Israel's hope didn't come from improved conditions. It came from the presence of God. When all they had was this promise, I have come down. Advent doesn't come from our circumstances always getting better or our strength or solutions or predictions. It comes from Emmanuel, God being with us. What's interesting is God comes to be with us, and then he sends us out. So what does he say to Moses? He says, come, I will send

you to the Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt. This is how God works. He comes to Moses, sends him out. Comes to Abraham, sends him out. Comes to Isaiah, sends him out. Christ comes, sends out his disciples. God fills his church with his spirit and sends them into the world. God's presence always leads us to God's mission. We're not comforted, just comforted by God being with us. We are commissioned by it, right? God being with us is not just our comfort, it's our calling. And so we've seen the despair, we've seen God coming close, and now we get this wonderful picture of the dawning of hope. The people who have walked in darkness have seen a great light, and those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them the light has shone.

Skipping ahead a few verses. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, and of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. And on the throne of David, and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice, with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. Isaiah is speaking to people in the darkness. Surrounded by enemies and invasion, they're spiritually compromised, morally bankrupt, politically unstable. And Isaiah doesn't tell them that things will get better and then hope will arise, but rather in the midst of their brokenness, hope will come, that on them a light has shone. And what's interesting is that these verses,

he's talking as if this has already happened. We'll talk about this more in a moment because he's using what's called the prophetic perfect. And it's a fascinating look at the sovereignty of God. But what I want us to see, first of all, that hope comes not just after the darkness, but it comes during it, right? That's the message of Advent. That's the message of the gospel. Hope comes not when we're good and we're squared away and everything is figured out and morals are all back together. It comes during the midst of darkness and brokenness, and it's certain because it's promised by God. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given. And notice how this is phrased. Isaiah is talking about the future, but he's referring to it as if it has already happened.

We talked about the prophetic perfect a moment ago. What that means is that future events are described in the past tense to convey the absolute certainty and inevitability of the promises of God. The dawning of hope is not just a change in circumstances. It is the coming of a person. Notice it's not new politics, a better job, more stuff. It's this, unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And while he's a king, he doesn't come with all the kingly trappings and the kingly separation from the commoners and the kingly wealth that gets him whatever he wants. He comes humbly born in a manger. He's called the Wonderful Counselor because he brings wisdom for our confusion, the Mighty God because he comes with strength for our weakness, the Everlasting Father because he comes with compassion for our wounds,

and the Prince of Peace because he brings wholeness to our fractured lives. The dawning of hope means that darkness does not have the final word. Isaiah 9 begins with this deep darkness and ends with the kingdom of endless increase of righteousness and justice. And he adds this line that is so important, the zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. not the zeal of people or the kings or the prophets, that God will establish this hope. And so if Christ has come, if light has come into the darkness, how are we to live? We're told in the New Testament we're to walk in the light, live as children of light. Proverbs talks about a path of light. How should we live as people of light? First of all, I think, is this, purpose rather than panic.

So many times we run from one problem to another, panicking, trying to keep everything moving at the same time, depending on our strength, but rather in hope we move forward confident that God is in control even when we can't see it all. Secondly, in promises, not predictions. We like to predict things, and we're often not very good at it. I never expected to wake up and see snow in my car this morning. Tuesday, they're talking about it snowing again, which means it's either going to be like a sunny 75 or it's going to be a blizzard and we get 12 feet of snow, right? They're all predicting something, right? Predictions are hard. Sometimes it's just guesses. You and I like to sit back and predict how things will go. If I do this and then I can do this and I can move on to this,

rather than predictions, let's live in the promises of God, living out our visible hope. Here's what I want you to see, is that God's people have hope. We begin in the darkness of despair, Exodus 2, with groaning, feeling forgotten, unseen, and unheard. But this was not the end of their story. It's where God was at work. Even in the darkness, God sees, He hears, He remembers, He knows, and He comes down to destroy His people. And the same God that comes to rescue his people in Egypt is the same God that came to rescue us from the brokenness and slavery and oppression of our sin. So we want to live as people who have hope, sharing that hope. We're going to pray, and then we'll stand and sing about that hope. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and grace.

And thank you that as we find ourselves often in life's wilderness and in darkness, that you have brought light into that darkness, that you have brought hope to where we are hopeless. We thank you for Jesus and for grace. It's in his name we pray. Amen. We're going to stand and we're going to sing, I set my hope on Jesus.

When this life of trials test my faith, I set my hope on Jesus. When the questions come and doubts remain, I set my hope on Jesus. For the deepest wounds that time won't heal There's a joy that runs still deeper There's a truth that's more than all I feel I set my hope on Jesus I set my hope on Jesus My rock, my only trust Who set his heart upon me first I set my hope on Jesus Though I falter in this war with sin I set my hope on Jesus When I feel the fight and sink within I set my hope on Jesus Though the shame would drown me in its sea And I dread the wave of justice I will cast my life on Calvary I set my hope on Jesus I set my hope on Jesus My God, my only trust You set His heart upon me first I set my hope on Jesus

Though the world call me to leave my Lord, I set my hope on Jesus. Though it offer all its vain rewards, I set my hope on Jesus. Though this heart of mine is prone to stray, give me grace enough to finish, till I worship on that final day, I set my hope on Jesus, I set my hope on Jesus, my love, my only trust. Who set his heart upon me first I set my hope on Jesus I set my hope on Jesus My rock, my only trust Who set his heart upon me first I set my hope on Jesus I set my hope unto Jesus We are so thankful that you are here with us this morning Whether here in person or with us online We will be here Wednesday evening Just a quick note as we move into some predicted winter weather

On Sundays, we're generally here. We generally don't cancel Sunday service. However, if it is snowy and slippery, we want to just urge you to use caution in coming here. I will walk to church if I have to, rather than drive, just so that I can be here. So there'll be somebody here at the church, but if it's bad out, don't come. For things like Wednesday evening and other events, we'll let you know if we decide to cancel those because of weather. So that's where we're at. One more announcement. There are Advent devotions that take you through this Saturday. On the table back there, I'll put the little bags of Advent blocks if you want to see sort of what they look like. There is a set that is set up back there on the table.

and you sort of put them out as you go through. They'll also be available online each day, and so we'll send out an email to remind you of that. I'm going to go ahead and pray. We'll read from Romans 15, and then we'll sing as we do this time of year, Go Tell It on the Mount. Father in heaven, thank you for Jesus and grace. Thank you for the hope that you have given us. Help us not to just talk about it, but help us to live in it. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So Paul writes in Romans, the 15th chapter, May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And as we heard this morning,

may the Lord who hears our cries, remembers his covenant, and has come near to us in Christ Jesus, may he fill us with hope in the waiting. May His love strengthen us, His promises anchor us, His presence be our peace as we walk through what's often a wilderness of this world. And as Peter reminds us, may you abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit until the day that Jesus comes again in glory. And so we go in the hope of Christ. I think we all know this forest by heart. It's coming, I won't say that Jesus Christ is born. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.