The Thrill of Hope | Week 4 | Pastor Dave Brown
MESSAGE NOTES
Episode Notes The Thrill of Hope - Week 4
December 21, 2025
Teacher: Pastor Dave Brown
We all long to be known and to be loved.
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
— St. Augustine
I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
— Ephesians 3:17-19
“Wide” illustrates his accepting love.
“Long” reveals his lasting love.
“High” proclaims his exalting love.
“Deep” displays his sacrificial love.
You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find rest in you.
— St. Augustine
God wasn’t hiding from us. We were hiding from God, so God came to find us.
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”(which means “God with us”).
— Matthew 1:18-23
Immanuel — God with us.
God
The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
— Luke 1:35
With
Us
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
— Romans 8:38-39