The Luke Miller Podcast

Here Comes Heaven - Hope (Jeremiah 33:14-16)

December 09, 2021 Sunrise Community Church Season 2 Episode 16
The Luke Miller Podcast
Here Comes Heaven - Hope (Jeremiah 33:14-16)
Show Notes Transcript

Luke starts a Christmas series where he dives deeper into the season of advent.  This week Luke takes a look at 'hope' as we find ourselves in Jeremiah 33 looking at the idea of hope in the past, present, and future.

Luke Miller  0:10  
Hello, and welcome to the Luke Miller Podcast. I'm glad that you are able to join me today. On this week's episode, we're starting a new series called here comes heaven as we take a look at Advent and start that Christmas season, and take a deeper look into the different aspects of hope, love, joy and peace, especially as they're revolving around the Christmas season as we are propelled forward to Easter. And so I'm excited for today, I hope you are too. Let's grab our Bibles. And let's dive in.

Today, we're talking about hope, and hope is something that seems so dynamic in our world, depending on who you talk to. And when I say dynamic, I'm really saying that everybody's got a different version of what they view hoped to be. And, and I believe, too, that even as Christ followers, we find ourselves with different definitions of hope. Or maybe the better way to saying is that different ways in which we think hope will reveal itself to us. We know that Jesus is coming again, right, and we hope for his return and that it will be soon. However, as Christ followers, we also hope that, that Jesus or will intervene in different areas of our life as well. Whether it is with sickness and healing, whether it is finances, whether it is with a job or help, whether it's with relationships, we hope for maybe something different. And, and I think that's kind of the the challenge that we're going to see today, as we take a look at a few passages revolving around hope and Christmas is that, that as Christ followers, our hope, is really that that that Jesus would intervene, that we hope that God would win intervene in different areas of our life. While we also focus further in the future. We'll see as we take a look today at Jeremiah chapter 33. And Luke Chapter One, two different ways in which hope is viewed, how actually we'll see three where hope is that the hope of past promises coming to fruition, you know, God's promises coming, coming true, then there is that present hope that we have where Jesus would intervene in different areas in our life. And finally, there's that future hope of knowing that God is coming again and hoping that he'll he'll come again soon. And so we'll we'll parse that a bit today. And I hope you are ready for this as we dive into kind of a few different passages. As we take a look at Hope. We were reminded that, that have the hope God gave His people when he promised to send them the Messiah of the Savior, a deliver. Hope reminds us in many ways that prophecies were fulfilled in the birth of Jesus Christ, and gives us hope, knowing that past promises of God will be fulfilled. And when all the promises that were initially fulfilled at his birth, will be completely fulfilled at His return. And some people I think it I know, we know this, and you may be one of them, too. We fit into these generally two categories. Some people are by nature, optimistic, it's their natural temperament. Others are by the same token pessimistic, you often get what you expect. And, and I want to take a look at genuine hope can never be based on our subjective outlook, your particular temperament. And hope, in fact, is more of a static thing than a dynamic and ever changing for the person. Depending on our circumstances, yes, it may change the person whose hope has no real basis, other than general optimistic spirit is clutching a hope that in many ways is deaf, dumb and blind. It's not really there. The only valid hope is his Christian hope. Now, I mentioned all of this, because it highlights the fact that that Christianity is a religion of hope. It's a faith that looks down the road to the future, to time when God's promises will be fulfilled. And that was true for God's people back in the Old Testament days as they looked forward to the birth of the Promised Messiah.

So again, we see that that hope is and you'll hear me say this a few times today that hope is those past promises of God coming true. It is the present hope that God will intervene in different areas in our lives. But it is really the future hope that Jesus is coming again. And, and it was true that for Mary and Joseph as they looked down the road at their newborn son, knowing that the time for the fulfillment of God's promises had finally come. And it's true for us today, as we look forward to the return of Christ, our faith is a future focused faith in, in so many ways, a religion of what is to come a religion of hope. Now, I could end there if it weren't for one thing. No hope is not automatic. In fact, I'm sure you can understand that sometimes hope is very difficult. How do we sustain hope in the midst of disappointment? How do we sustain hope in the midst of difficulty? How do we keep from being completely overwhelmed by trials or pain that may be happening in our lives? How do we maintain an attitude of hope? When everything seems to crush us? And and we deal with that often, and we've all faced situations where there seems to be little objective reason for hope, little reason to be optimistic. In our jobs, in our marriages, and our relationships with family members, we could all say that this has happened sometimes. And some of us have faced seemingly hopeless medical or financial problems. And then some of us right now are in situations that may seem hopeless. So you're tempted to give up hope? How do we hold on to hope during those times when our circumstances seem seem hopeless, in and let's dive into a few passages here as we go through this, because I think it's important for us to take a look at both the Old Testament and New Testament hope. And I want to start in Jeremiah chapter 33. And we're just looking at three short verses here. 1415 and 16. And this is this past promise of hope. And where we're God is making a promise. Yeah, we also see that this promise is coming to fruition. It the birth of Jesus. Now, again, one of the key things that we look at in, especially in this podcast is that wonderful German word, the sights and laeven, which is saying how do the we see read this first in the original context. So you have to understand it's the time of Jeremiah, the the people are in, in exile. It is not a great time in Israel's history. However, now that message is being delivered, and it says, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will fulfill the good promise I made to the people of Israel and Judah, which is in those days, and at that time, I will make a righteous branch sprout out of David's line, he will do what is just and right in the land. In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. This is the name by which it will be called the Lord, our righteous savior. Now, you have to understand that it seemed like both Israel and Judah were living I don't even want to say it seemed it was in fact, Israel and Judah were living in a very dark time in their history. The exile had happened. They were being oppressed. And it seemed like there was no hope there was no reason for optimism. And really, as we say, like optimism has pessimism is something totally separate from hope. You have to be able to, to separate that. Because it doesn't matter how you looked at the situation, it was a dark time. And it would seem that it was hopeless. Yet out of this darkness comes this message of light. The days are coming when I will fulfill a good promise, the good promise I have made to the people of Israel and Judah. Now, you have to understand how that must have been such a great message for the people to hear in in that dark time, a message of that Messiah. Now we know that Jesus didn't come for quite a while. But that did not slow down or stop that hope that static hope of knowing that God has promised something and therefore it was going to happen. Now I want to take a tiny little rabbit trail here if you will indulge me

is that one of the neat things about prophets is the way the and the language that they use and how they use it. So often, in our language, we think of three different tenses, the past, the present and the future. The prophets and the way Hebrew works as well, is it not only talks about a past, a present and a future, but it also adds in a second component which says, Is this an incompleted action? Or is this? Or is this a completed action? You know, has this happened yet? Or has this not happened yet. And you can do that in the past, the present and the future. But one of the things that I love about the prophets is that when God promises them something, and they deliver that message to the people of Israel, they speak in a tense that is a future tense, however, they speak as though it is a completed action, they know for certain that this is going to happen. So they instead of saying, in the future, when God does this, they speak as though God has already completed it, even though it's in the future, they know it's going to happen because it is a promise of God. I think we can say that's probably a good lesson for us to learn as we go through our own trials. And our own lessons in hopelessness is God refines us in many ways, when we're looking for hope. But even notice how the words in verse 14 of Jeremiah 33, say, when I will fulfill the good promise, you know, and it's spoken with absolute, it's going to happen. And it's spoken in to people who have not seen a lot of good days. Now, I hope that this translates a little bit to us, or a lot of it translates to us in in our current context right now, where we may be looking for hope in some way yet we know that we can rely on God's promises, as we read God's Word in and even as I spoke about on this past Sunday, if you didn't catch it, that's, that's all right. I'm, I'm in no way offended. I'll give a quick summary here, though, is, is when we look at hope in our lives, and we wrestle with, with hope in our lives, how are we able to respond in a Christ like way, and, and what we find here as we go through this, is that one of those ways which we we can get that hope is to spend time in Scripture, and what everything that was written in the past was written for our own benefit to help us learn to help us be encouraged to help us with endurance, the Scripture says, and so when we look at this, we see that this was hoped to have people in the dark time, how will that affect us? Right now in our contexts, you may be in a place where you're in where hope does not seem like a bright shining light in front of you. And, and the challenge for us in in our walk with Christ is to say, are we approaching the promises God has made us whether it be comfort, whether to be walking alongside us to give us peace? Whatever they may be, are we taking that as this will happen? And we're positive word, we treat it almost like a completed action like the prophets did. Because we know God will not go back on his promises, God will not go back on His covenant. And so I think I know that we see this right. So there's that first thing of dealing with hopelessness, is that yes, you got to put your hope in God to trust Him for the help. And and that may seem obvious, but But too often, we're willing to seek help from anyone or anything before we turn to God.

It's kind of that last resort in many ways. If there's the if the problem is financial, we don't look to God. First, we look to a banker or a relative maybe if the problem is relational, a conflict with a spouse or family member, we buy books, and scour magazine articles or listen to Oprah or Dr. Phil or whoever, Dr. Laura, I don't know whoever people listen to. And then finally, maybe people maybe we turn to God for help. We need to reverse that. And that's a challenge of recognizing that hope is static hope has not changed ever changing in our lives. We will try everything we can think of. And if nothing else works, then we think of praying, you know, calling out to God, it's really gone backwards. We should go to God first, not last. And I believe the Bible expresses one thing we need to hear very clearly again, we can have hope in the midst of life's life circumstances, because the one that we have hope in is greater than the sum of all of life circumstances. Let me say that again. Because I will be it's very important and I hopefully it gives paints a very good picture. We can have hope in the midst of life circumstances. Because the one that we have hope in is greater than the sum total of all of life's circumstances he is greater than. And if our hope is built, as we sing on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, as that great hit him goes, then we have a great hope. If our hope is built on only Jesus blood and righteousness, we have much to hope on. We have a great God to hope on. It's why we sing about a man you well at Christmas God with us, he was with I mean, he was with us 2000 years ago, and he is with us now. In this present moment, we have a God who cared enough to dwell with us. In when, when Jesus came as a baby in a manger in Bethlehem, he came to a cold, desolate world that had no hope. It had been about 400 years between Malikai and Matthew, God had not been heard of heard from and 400 years, at least in the Old Testament, he had burning bushes, he spoke in gentle whispers, he spoke in Big shout through the prophets, but But 400 years of silence had led to a loss of hope. And, and if you think about it, it's entirely appropriate for Jesus who is the hope of the world to have come in the form of an infant, because in many ways, babies are hope personified. They are pure potential that their lives are all in the future. And if you've had kids, I'm sure you can understand that I remember when already was born and levy was born all sudden, there's this new life, so full of potential that they can grow up to anything and anything is possible. The help of the world came wrapped in swaddling clothes, of the one who had placed in the middle place the manger in Bethlehem, from God. But Mary had even more than that the unused are the more than the usual maternal pride to justify having great hope and her son, because remember, Gabrielle had visited her and given her a promise as well given her hope. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, the Lord will give him the throne of his father David and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, his kingdom will never end. While you talk about a promise, I mean, this is this promise to marry is just a is also a prophecy that's accurate of Messiah. seven centuries earlier, For unto us a child is born to us a son 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 increase of His government and peace, there will be no end He will reign on David's throne, reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will accomplish this and that's Isaiah chapter nine. In other words, to translate this all and and bring this back home when Jesus was born, God made it clear that this baby was the one for whom the world had been waiting for had been watching for who'd been hoping for that the joy that filled Mary and Joseph hearts as they look down on their son wrapped in blankets lying in an ordinary manger filled with straw, knowing what hope that this child would bring to so many and whom the promises of God and the promises of God would be fulfilled and had been fulfilled through. And the two words, kind of as we start to wrap this up, and I realized that I'll have to wrap this up at some point. Two words used in new chat New Testament that are translated as hope in English. One has to do with trust, usually a person, but the one used most in the New Testament has to do with expectation and anticipation. And that's always related to God. The most obvious illustration that comes to mind during the season is is that excitement of that have kids on Christmas Eve. Right. And what what may be next but but that is that's only part of it. The other hope that we're talking about event expectation, and anticipation is what we see as Christ followers, this sort of hope that I'm talking about today is not a yearning for something uncertain, like what's under the Christmas tree. I don't know what presence I may get. It's something that is a confident anticipation and expectation that we know will happen, hope. And let me say this very clearly, hope is based in fact, that God loves you. Hope is based in firm conviction that God cares for you. And hope is based on in final assurance that God wants to be with you. It's why he's coming again. It's why as Christ followers, we will live in eternity singing God's praises. We can't make it through life without hope. We can live 40 days without food, eight days without water for minutes, maybe without air, but only a few seconds without hope. Hope is the greatest asset in our life. And and the question is, is where is our hope today? Is it wrapped up in expectations of a gift under a tree? Or is it made up of certainty in anticipation of what will God do for your life, to live with crisis to live with hope, and I hope that all of you that are listening are able to claim that living hope that God made possible by sending His Son Jesus, I think that is a great place for us to to stop today. And understand that we can be assured that whatever our circumstances God is with us, He will be with you at the beginning and at the end, in every point in between. And instead. So I hope that has been a good picture into to hope for, for where we are, and and what we understand. And and I'll leave us with that spot where where we can can move on to next week. And really look at this. Where I I'll reiterate that statement that I had said a little earlier because I think it's a great sending off point. We can have hope in the midst of life circumstances because the one that we have hope in is greater than the sum of all of life's circumstances put together. If that is not a great way to send us off, I don't know what it is. So I will leave it there. And I will say Take care. Have a great week, and I will talk to the next week as we dive deeper into our series. Here comes have it. Talk to you next week.