Arrival of Hope
Good News • Week 1
The arrival of Jesus was the long-awaited arrival of hope for the people of Israel and hope for us today. Dave Brown reminds us that this hope is not just for some future thing, it also affects our present and helps shape our view of the past.
MESSAGE NOTES
Arrival of Hope
Good News • November 28, 2021
Teacher: Dave Brown
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Luke 2:10 NIV
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord."
Advent means arrival
Isaiah 7:14 NIV
"Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel."
Isaiah 9:6-7 NIV
"For to us a child is born, To us a child is given, And the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, Establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever."
Webster Dictionary:
"to cherish a desire with anticipation"
"to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment"
Timothy Keller
"You and I are unavoidably and irreducibly hope based creatures. How we live now is controlled by what we think will happen later by our understanding of our future state."
Ecclesiastes 2:1-11 NIV
I said to myself, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." But that also proved to be meaningless. "Laughter," I said, "is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?" I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.
I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man's heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.
I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.
C.S. Lewis
"Creatures are not born with desires unless satisfaction for those desires exists. A baby feels hunger: well, there is such a thing as food. A duckling wants to swim: well, there is such a thing as water...If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy [my desire], that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on the one hand, never to despise, or to be unthankful for, these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind of copy, or echo, or mirage."
Because of Jesus' birth, there is hope for a ruined humanity, a hope of forgiveness, a hope of peace with God, and a hope of future glory.
There's purpose in our past because God intends to use our past for his glory!
Acts 1:11 NIV
"This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven."