Advent: HOPE
Isaiah 40:1-5
Advent ( Latin adventus, Greek parousia) : appearing, arrival or official visit.
Romans 15:13 Psalm 33:20-22 Isaiah 40:31
Our hope is in His comfort vv.1-2
2 Corinthians 1:3-5
If God’s comfort is not enough for you, then no one else’s will be either.
Our hope is in His preparation vv.3-4
Two kinds of preparation:
By God’s people.
By God Himself
Our hope is in His presence v.5
Viktor Frankl, a Jewish doctor who survived the death camps in Germany during World War II wrote about his experiences and in particular the effect of hope. He noticed that some prisoners just withered up and died while other prisoners stayed strong. He tried to figure out why, and this was his conclusion. “If a prisoner lost faith in his future, he was doomed.” He gave this example. “One of my friends in the camp had a dream that the war would end March 30. He was convinced the dream was a revelation, but as the date drew nearer, it became clear from the news reports the war was not ending. On March 29 he began running a temperature. On March 30 he lost consciousness. On March 31 he was dead. His loss of hope had lowered his body’s resistance to all of the diseases in the camp.” You literally can’t live without hope. You can’t stay healthy without something to look forward to. Depression is linked to hopelessness.
Turn to Isaiah 40:1-5
This morning we begin a new series entitled Advent. The word Advent comes from a Latin word Advent ( Latin adventus, Greek parousia) : appearing, arrival or official visit.
The observance of Advent began around the 4th Century A.D. and was originally all about the 2nd Advent, (The 2nd Arrival) …known as the 2nd coming of Christ.
When the New Testament talks about the 2nd coming of Jesus, it uses this GK word parousia, like in Matthew 24:3 “As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming (parousia) and of the close of the age?”
More recently, those who observe ADVENT focus on the 1st Advent, the 1st coming of the Messiah that we call Christmas. The purpose of celebrating Advent is to help get our eyes off the secularization of Christmas and focus on the real meaning of Christmas. Each week is marked with a different candle that signifies a different aspect of Advent.
There are 3 purple candles, one rose candle, and one white candle.
--The candles = represent Jesus and what He came to bring us.
--The evergreens = represent life for those who are in Him.
--They are arranged in a circle which is a sign of the eternality of Jesus who has no beginning and no end; the Alpha and Omega—the 1st and last letters of the Greek language.
So, each Sunday we will light an additional candle. Then on Christmas Eve, we will light the last candle. 3 Christmas Eve Services-- 3:30, 4:45, 6:00
This morning we light the 1st candle, the Hope candle. (light)
We live in an age where hope is in short supply…stats
To be sure, there are lots of folks in the world that have hope, but their hope is in the wrong place…
There is one place, one person, one being that we CAN place our hope, and that is the God of the Bible.
Listen to just a few of the verses of Scripture that declare our God as the God of hope:
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13. You ought to scribble these references on your listening guide or in your Bible because there’s not a person here that doesn’t need more hope…some of us are desperate for that hope. “We wait for the LORD;
he is our help and shield. 21 For our hearts rejoice in him because we trust in his holy name.
22 May your faithful love rest on us, LORD, for we put our hope in you.” Psalm 33:20-22
“But those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength; they will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not become weary, they will walk and not faint.” Isaiah 40:31
Yahweh is the God of all hope. The wise put their hope in Him.
So this leads us back to our passage for this morning. It speaks of the hope that we have in Jesus. Even tho it was written 700 years before His birth, it called out to the people of God then, and it calls out to the people of God now: Put your hope in Jesus!
The book of Isaiah was written by the great 7th century BC prophet Isaiah and has primarily 2 parts: 1st part (1-39) of Isaiah is written primarily to the people of Judah cajoling and warning them to turn from their spiritual complacency and seek Yahweh with all their heart and soul. It is fiery…and it is scary what awaited them because of their indifference to God’s demands. God intends to send the Babylonians to be the rod of His discipline. They don’t know it yet, but within a 100 years Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians will come in 586 BC, lay siege to the city, depriving it of food and water. It would become so drastic that Jeremiah the prophet wrote during that time that mothers were actually boiling their dead children for nourishment. The Babylonians would tear down the walls, tear down their precious temple built by Solomon 400 years before, and completely sack the city. Then the survivors would be carted off into captivity for 70 years. It wasn’t a pretty picture of the future.
But now in ch.40 Isaiah shifts his focus from the next 200 years to a time in the future that would be a picture painted with colors of hope and optimism. He encourages the people of God to live rightly despite the present and future difficulties. And so in these 1st 5 verses of chapter 40, he is infusing hope into their hearts that there will come a day when all will not be so bleak.
Read Isaiah 40:1-5 (on screen)
Our hope is in His comfort vv.1-2 (on screen)
God wanted His people to know that despite the pain and suffering they were going through and would go through, that He had not abandoned them…that in the midst of the pain He would comfort them.
In this case, the pain and suffering was coming as a direct result of their disobedience. It could be that the pain and suffering you’re going through right now is a direct result of you choosing your way instead of God’s way. But if you’re a child of God, even in the midst of God’s disciplinary action, you can run to Him for comfort.
As a parent, you know that your love for your children prompts you to discipline your children and even bring pain and suffering into their lives. You don’t do this because you hat them, but you do it because you love them. When I needed to discipline one of my kids, always always afterward I would hug them and affirm my love for them. I wanted to comfort them even as I was disciplining them.
Some of us are in pain and suffering and we had little or nothing to do with it. We live in a broken world filled with broken people. We suffer diseases, abuses, injustices. It’s certainly a good thing to hope in some restoration or restitution in this life. But ultimately, we may not get it in this life. That’s why we seek comfort from the ultimate Comfort Giver.
2 Corinthians 1:3-5 says: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. 4 He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”
He is the God of all comfort. Do you need tenderness? Compassion? Comfort? Seek it from Him. Listen, If God’s comfort is not enough for you, then no one else’s will be either.
Our hope is in His preparation vv.3-4 (on screen)
There are Two kinds of preparation: By God’s people. Isaiah is calling out to God’s people; “Hey ya’ll, listen up! Prepare a way for the Lord’s coming!!”
You probably noticed that John the Baptist quoted this verse when he announced the beginning of Jesus’ earthly ministry, right? “In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2 and saying, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near!” 3 For he is the one spoken of through the prophet Isaiah, who said: A voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way for the Lord; make his paths straight!” Matthew 3:1-4
In ancient times, when a king was traveling, workmen would go before his enterage raising the valleys and lowering the mountains and leveling out the rough terrain for the king. We would say today that they were rolling out the red carpet, right?
Both Isaiah and John the Baptist were admonishing the people to roll out the red carpet for the Messiah. And how would we do that? By opening our hearts to Him. By removing anything that is an impediment from experiencing a close, intimate relationship with Him.
What is it in your life that you’re holding on to that is keeping you from experiencing the fullness that God has for you? A sin habit? A relationship? A fear? An unforgiveness? Whatever it is, we need to confess it, repent of it, remove it so that we prepare our hearts for what He wants to do in us.
That leads us to the 2nd kind of preparation: By God Himself
Look at v.4 again (on screen) Notice the absolutes: Every valley will be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill will be leveled; the uneven ground will become smooth and the rough places, a plain.” Only God could make this promise.
Eventually, God prepared the way for the Israelites to return to Jerusalem after their captivity. Ultimately, He became one of us to prepare the way for us to be right with God. Jesus is the ultimate leveler, right? Jesus is the one who how prepared the way for us to know and love God. He declared in John 14:6 “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
And Jesus continues to be the Great Leveler, the Great Preparer, the Great Deliverer. What wilderness do you find yourself in? What desert are you in that is leaving you parched and empty. What valley do you need to be lifted out of?
Here’s what He offers us: “Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19
Story
Our hope is in His presence v.5 (on screen)
The glorious One would appear. All of humanity will see it. This is the language of the incarnation: God in the flesh. Jesus the Messiah, the Promised One, the Chosen One.
Immanuel: God with us. Listen my friends, there is not a more important realization and promise for us when we are struggling with adversity and discouragement and fear: and that is that God-Is-With-Us.
He will be with us. When you go thru the fire, He’ll be with you. When you go thru deep waters, He’ll be with you. When you’re spouse leaves you or is taken from you, He’ll be with you. When your health or the health of a loved one is being drained out day after day, He’ll be with you. When death’s shadow steals over your home, He’ll be with you. That is our hope.
