Pastor Brian and Jacque Lother
Brian: Isn't that a great truth that he is here with us? This is the second Sunday of Advent and the candle we will like today, the second candle is called the candle of hope. As we like the second candle, we remember that the savior was indeed born in Bethlehem, as God had promised. His promises give us hope, don't they? He promises give us hope. Have you ever been in need of hope? Have you ever been in need of hope? I've got to fix my deal here. I've been in need of hope. One of the places that I stir my hope up with is the promises of God, the promises of God. Hope and trust, they are kind of a, I don't know if you want to call them bed partners or bosom buddies or whatever, but hope and trust go hand in hand.
Paul talks about faith, hope and love, and he says that the greatest of these of course is love. But a hope is something that grows within our hearts. It's an internal thing, isn't it? Hope is an internal thing. Faith on the other hand is an external thing. There is an action that accompanies that internal hope and so forth. Catalin and Kelly, they have a hope of what's going to happen in September, but it's not going to happen if they don't put in some action steps. Those action steps are called faith. James even says, you can show me, you have faith, but I'll show you my faith by what, by the works that I do by, by how I walk this belief out. The greatest of them all is still love because love takes both inward compassion and empathy, but it's also and external action in our lives.
The promises of God do something within the hearts of us. They strengthen us. They give us hope when things are dark. We know that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. We know that. Our whole calendar is based on the birth of Christ, isn't it? We look at historical dates and we say, this person lived and in 400 BC. What does the BC stands for?
Jacque: Before Christ.
Brian: Before Christ. Yes. And then of course, there are other dates that come after his birth and that's called AD. Ad is like an abbreviation for the Latin term, Anno Domini, which means in the year of our Lord. So we are living in 2020 in the year of our Lord, even though it feels like a bad year. It's still the year of the Lord, and there are still great things that are taking place in our lives. Normally, I would read these scriptures to you today, but I'm going to try and redeem a little bit of time and not read the scriptures, but I'm going to give them to you. The basic Christmas story is found in Luke chapter 2, verses 1-7, where it talks about how Mary and Joseph went to Bethlehem because of this decree from Caesar Augustus, and Jesus was born there. There is a preface to that whole story of the birth that we see in Luke chapter one, where the angel came to Mary and begins to introduce to her what is about to take place. Sometimes, not all news from God is good news, or at least it doesn't always make you feel good, but it will be good news. Even Ananias was told by God, ‘go tell Paul what great things he must’, what? Suffer.
Jacque: suffering. I didn't remember the word ‘suffer’, but you have to go through.
Brian: Yeah. All the hard things you are going to have to go through. So here is Mary, maybe she is 14, 15, 16, but certainly a young girl, this angel shows up and begins to tell her that she is going to become pregnant, and of course, she is a chaste woman, C H A S T E. She says, well, how is this going to happen? I'm a Virgin. The angel says, "Well, Holy Spirit is going to come upon you." This is really interesting. In that section, the angel says to her, 'Oh, and by the way, just so that you believe what I'm saying, you know, your aunt, Elizabeth, who is like really, really old, well, she is already six months pregnant.' God was giving Mary a miracle to hang on to out there for somebody else.
Jacque: Everybody had said she was barren. She was pronounced barren.
Brian: She could not have children. We know the story about she was going to be the mother of John, the Baptist. The angel says to Mary, 'This miracle that happened to this person over here. We want you to look at that because there are miracles available for you as well.'
Jacque: The angel said, "Nothing is impossible with God."
Brian: Thank you, sweetie. Nothing is impossible with God. So Jesus came to bring heaven to the earth. He came to basically bring thy kingdom come. They will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So then another part of the story that we sing a lot of Christmas carols about, and we often put it in the same time sequence, and we are not really sure this is accurate to do that, but it's the wise men, the magi from the east. We know their story. They saw the star, and they were moved. They knew that star represented something of significance to the Jewish people that a king was born. They came probably, maybe from Babylon someplace in Persia, somewhere from the east, to worship him. They showed up in Jerusalem and they make inquiries. Where is this king of the Jews that has just been born? Because we want to pay homage to him.
Well, they went to the wrong guy. They went to the King. The difference between kings and presidents, we can actually have four or five or six presidents still alive after they have completed their tour of duty, in a sense, but with kings, you don't have four or five or six kings still alive. The king is king until what?
Jacque: He dies.
Brian: He dies. Most kings that died were assassinated because somebody else wanted the throne. So the wise man came to Herod and they say, "We've come to worship this king of the Jews." The first thing he thinks of, 'there's a bounty on my head.' There's a bounty on my head.
Jacque: I'm on my way out.
Brian: Yeah, I'm on my way out, so obviously he gets concerned and they discovered... He goes to the religious leaders, where is this king supposed to be born? And they say, 'well, in Bethlehem.' The religious leaders… go back and look at Micah, the prophet and so forth. Herod goes back and tells the wise men; the wise men go to Bethlehem. As they are leaving Jerusalem, the star appears again, they followed it, and the star actually led them as the scripture says, to the house where the Christ child was. A lot of times in our attempt to consolidate things, we put the wise men at the manger, and I don't actually have a problem with that, but some historians feel that this situation actually happened a couple years after the birth of Christ. That's why Herod inquired, when did this star first appear to you? They told them when, and it had been about two years prior to that. So that's why Herod went then to Bethlehem and killed all the infant boys that were two years old and younger, but of Mary and Joseph had already fled with the gifts that the wise men brought.
As I think about the wise men, the magi, when the magi left the security of their Persian homeland, I think in some respects to look for an answer to their prayers, I believe it was with faith and hope that they had as diligent seekers. The question that we need to ask ourselves today, are we seekers? Are we seekers of truth? Are we seekers of him? They were considered wise and learned in the sense that they recognized there was more to truth than what they themselves knew. There was more to everything than what they themselves knew, and they were pursuing a greater understanding because of a revelation that happened that they saw in the heavens. When that mystical star appeared in the night sky, they packed their bags and they followed it. Just think of the faith that, that took. Just think of what that meant.
They were going to risk danger, traveling in an entourage over desert lands, but they packed their bags and followed it, even though they weren't sure of the destination. How many of us are really willing to do that? Well, where are we going to go? Where are we going to this? What about that? And the challenges, even again, like Catalin and Kelly, with the challenges before them, they don't actually know where their church is going to be, but they are stepping out in faith. They don't know where they are going to meet yet, but they are stepping out in faith, because they are responding to what God's doing in their hearts, but this is the way with all seekers. They start from where they are at, using the revelation that's available, the knowledge and understanding that they have, and they head out, confident that on the way, their destination will become clearer. That's how we have to do it.
So many of us fear to start along the path of discovery, because we can't see the end, but we can't be that way. We can't be that way. Sometimes we just want to see the end from the beginning. The last time I checked, the only one that can do that is God. He is the only one that knows the end from the beginning, but the wisdom, true wisdom will understand the importance of simply beginning, just simply begin. None of us remember when we took our first steps, but when we did, it wasn't with the idea of necessarily going somewhere. It was just with the idea of, 'I want to be like mom and dad, and they are walking on two legs instead of four', so I want to do that, so they just start walking.
The Magi, after they arrived in Jerusalem, you know what they discovered? They were in the wrong place. That's what they discovered. They were in the wrong place. Sometimes on our journey, we are walking by faith and it's really not where God has us intending to land. So we have to have the courage to simply say, okay, where do you want to take us from here? Where do you want to take us from here? There no king of the Jews in residence in Jerusalem at that time. Herod was a king, but he really used the Jews. H wasn't really one of them. Nobody in Jerusalem seemed to know the existence of this king of the Jews, but they kept persisting in their inquiry. That's what we have to do as seekers at time, keep persisting. Keep mining a little bit deeper.
I wonder if they were tempted at times in this journey to give up. I'm wondering if they were. I wonder if before they got even to Israel, if they landed some other place on the journey and found, I don't feel like going any further. We are always going to be like that, tempted to give up. Maybe no real clear direction from other people in authority. Maybe they felt like turning back. Maybe their initial faith was beginning to turn into doubt. I've had that experience feeling so full of faith, and a year later, what I had faith for was still needing to be mined and dug and worked for, and my faith wasn't nearly as strong as before that. Maybe they felt like turning back. Maybe they were like the two disciples on the road to a Mayez. We had hope. What a great line. What a confession, right? But they eventually chose to follow the guidance of in a sense of change, even though it seemed unusual and they left the temple courts of Jerusalem and they headed for a little hamlet called Bethlehem. Don't you get like a warm, fuzzy feeling when you think of Bethlehem? I don't know if we would have been in Bethlehem that night, if we would have felt as warm and fuzzy as we do when we reflect back on it in our nice warm homes around our fireplaces.
Jacque: When you see it now it's not warm and fuzzy.
Brian: No. When see it now, it's not warm and fuzzy at all. They do have a coffee shop in Bethlehem called Stars and Bucks, by the way, not Starbucks, but Stars and Bucks. So if you ever need a coffee, you can get one there. Sometimes just like the magi, we arrive in blind alleys, don't we? We felt strong direction. We take off, we have faith, things are going good, and then all of a sudden we find ourselves in a blind alley or we've feel as though we've taken a wrong turn on our search for truth. The path that seemed to be so clear when we started has led to multiple disappointments. The path that seems so clear at the beginning, now, we've taken and it has been a road almost to despair. Do you know what despair is? I looked this word up last night. It's the complete loss or absence of hope.
There are so many people today that are in a place of despair. They have no more hope. They began a journey, maybe it was a marriage. Maybe it was starting a business. Maybe it was even starting a church. Maybe it was starting something, and they started with so much excitement, a relationship, maybe having children, and what you were anticipating, your children would turn out like, it has not been that at all. Your hop has been replaced by despair, but that is often the time to open up our hearts and our minds to a different path and follow a new direction. I wonder if the Magi, sweetie, when they got to Jerusalem, if they felt despair. They showed up, they were in the capital of Jewry and they made inquiries, and nobody knew anything about what they were talking about. As a matter of fact, the scripture seemed to indicate that the one thing that happened was everybody got all stirred up about it.
Jacque: Disturbed.
Brian: Disturbed. Yes. Stirred, disturbed, a stirring disturb. How do you think the match I felt at that moment? Everybody was disturbed. Nobody knew what they were talking about. Nobody had a clue. Wouldn't it have been easy for them to say to themselves 'I think we blew it’? What were we thinking? Why did we come all this way?' Sometimes I will joke with people; oftentimes people will come out this neck of the woods and they don't cab GPS on their phones. In fact, I had a guy stopped just a couple of weeks ago with GPS in his phone and he was still lost. He was still lost. He couldn't find where he was going. He pulled into my driveway and he said, “Can you tell me how to get to here?” and he gave me where he wanted to go. Whenever anybody asks me that I kind of play with them a little bit, and I say, “You can't get there from here. You've got to go someplace else first.”
That's kind of like our story of Hope Community Church, where we are here, but this isn't where we started. We actually started across the street with the property over there and worked with the city for over three years, thinking that that's where we were going to go, but that wasn't where God had for us. This is what God had for us. It took six years for all of that to unfold. When we went before the city council, the first time, and we were trying to build a church on the other side of the road, and we left that council meeting with a four to one vote against us, it was really easy for me to come home that night and say to myself, ‘maybe we blew it’. We had already spent money on architects and this and applications and thousands of dollars, big investment.
We didn't have a home to assemble in. It was really easy to say to myself, maybe I missed it. Maybe I missed it. When the magi got to Jerusalem, they discovered that maybe they missed it, but there is a wonderful thing that happened. They got a little bit of information, just a little bit, just a little snippet of truth from God's word that said, no, this king is going to be born in Bethlehem. That's just four miles. That's just across the street, just four miles away from here. Four miles away to them was just like across the street to us, since they had ridden camels all the way from Persia. They are in this very unexpected, certainly not Las Vegas type place, in very unremarkable town, they found the, answer to their prayers. They found the Christ child.
With their search now ended, and their goal having been attained, of course, they gave Mary Joseph and Jesus, their gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh. It had been easy for the Magi to have supposed that they had nothing more to learn or nothing more to hear from God, but they would have been wrong, because God was still speaking to them. Even after they arrived, even after they gave them their gifts, even after they had accomplished their goal, God was still speaking to them. In that stillness that followed the joy of their journey, God spoke to them and led them in a different direction. He said, 'I want you to go back home from a different route. Don't go with the way you got here.' Who knows what may have happened to them if they would have gone. They would not have listened to that voice. Then that same night, the angel came and spoke to Mary and Joseph about leaving town. They put everything they had in the sack and left that night.
Jacque: God is always at work with details and leading and guiding to bring his plan.
Brian: That's right. As seekers, at times, we might be tempted to feel that our journey has ended when our prayers have been answered, but this is actually the time when we must listen even more. Even when after your prayers have been answered, it's a time to listen even more carefully because this is the moment that God might lead us and guide us even into a different path, a new path. At this Christmas season, let us all follow the example of the wise men. Let's be seekers. Let's seek God with diligence. Let's follow him as he gives us insights and directions along the way. Let's listen as he guides us beyond our expectations to new areas of growth and service, because God is not finished with any of us yet. I don't care how old you are. God is not finished with any of us yet.
Here is something very important; please do not let other people determine how you will end your journey. The wise men weren't going to let Herod determine how they ended their journey. They listened to God. Hope is there, this candle of hope or this candle represents hope. Hope is there to strengthen our steps when the terrain and the road is hard. Just remember that. Hope is in your hearts to strengthen your steps when the terrain and the road that you are traveling on is rough and hard. When we are down to nothing, God is up to something. When we are at the end of our rope, God has got a whole other extension to put on for us.
God is up to something and he will be able to carry us through, because hope means this- that we are not forgetting what God can do. I love the name Hope. When we first were starting this church, God dropped that word into our hearts because everybody needs, hope for something. It doesn't matter what strata of life you are in. You could be the wealthiest person in Corcoran. You could be the most impoverished person in our community or any place you live. Everybody needs hope for something. Hope means that we are not forgetting what God can do. You know what else is interesting about hope? It's contagious. It's contagious. If you are around a hopeful people, you will become more hopeful, but you know what else has contagious? Despair. Despair is contagious as well.
Jacque: Every room needs a hopeful person in it.
Brian: That's right.
Jacque: Let's be that person that brings hope, because right now there is a whole lot of complaining out there. Let's bring hope.
Brian: I asked myself this question, why three kings, why three wise men, why three magi? The Bible actually doesn't say three, but the implication is because of the three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, and ‘they brought their gifts’, so the assumption is there were three at least, and maybe an entourage of people, but I've asked the Lord, why three? Why not just one really important king, one important leader? The answer I believe is that they all kept each other encouraged on the journey. They needed each other. They deposited hope into each other. That's why a chord of three strands is not easily broken. So they encouraged each other and they were full of hope. We all need, as Jacque said, hopeful people in the room with us. Get people in the room with you who are hopeful, not full of despair.
We need people who can bring us back to the word of God when our journey is long and hard. When your journey is hard and long, and you are getting weary and you are getting worn out and you are getting tired and you are beginning to question, am I where I'm supposed to be? Am I doing what I supposed to do? Is this where I'm supposed to be? Is this what I was supposed to do? What we need people to do for us is not fuel our despair, but to deposit hope into our hearts. You can do that for people in despair. You can do that. We need people that will bring us back to the word of God when our journey is long and hard, which will call our hearts and settle our spirits. Hope will do this. The best way for you to settle your heart and calm your spirit is for you to have hope in your heart.
Jacque: With God, all things are possible.
Brian: That's so good.
Jacque: I heard this line one time that I love- everything is fixable. I love that.
Brian: That's so good.
Jacque: Everything is fixable with God.
Brian: We serve a God; we serve a good God who gets us through extremely tough and hard times. He can do that. You know what, there may be a lot of people who want to write the ending of your story and they take the liberty to tell you about it too. 'Well, that's sucks. That's not going to work. I would never do that. Well, that's going to fail. Your marriage is never going to make it. Your business is never going to be successful.' There are all sorts of people who feel such great liberty to deposit that stuff into our lives. What they are really doing is they are trying to write the end of your story, but God has an ending to your story. It's an ending that will honor him and bless you. He has got an ending to every single one of our stories, and that ending will be an ending that honors him and blesses you. The only one who can give you a bad ending is you, but if you remain full of hope, full of faith, full of expectation, remembering that Jesus was born in Bethlehem as the prophets foretold, and you let that hope of the word of God get deeper in your heart, as you do that, you will determine the end of your day, the story, not somebody else.
Don't settle for one of those bad endings to your story. Don't settle for a bad ending. Keep hoping, keep trusting, keep believing because the God of hope knows what he is doing. The God of hope is up to something. When you are down to nothing, the God of hope, he is up to something. Let's pray together.
Jacque: Can we pray for John Cosi? He went back to the hospital.
Brian: Okay. Yes. Father, John has been struggling for wow, two months or longer with the effects of COVID and these kinds of things. I pray Lord that you put a hope in Sandy's heart and put a hope in the Cosi family and put a hope in John, that this is not your plan, God, that you have a plan to give him a future. There is still life to live. There are still ways to honor and praise you, Lord. I just pray blessings on them and open up the windows of heaven for them. For all those who are here in the sanctuary today, and all of those who are watching by our livestream, and you have sensed and felt this past year, this reservoir in your heart, just becoming more and more filled with despair. It feels like things are becoming more and more hopeless. I pray in Jesus name that we will see this candle and what it represents, that in the darkest of times, under the most oppressive regime in Israel time, hope was born, a light had come that would change everything in the world, not just for a handful of people in Israel, but the world.
Today, father, I pray for hope to fall into our hearts. May it partner with trust, may our hope and trust begin to energize us to walk out and faith and love. Lord, may this Christmas season be filled with such expectation, such hope, such belief in you, that Lord, you have an ending to our story that's good. You have an ending to our story that will honor you and will bless us. We pray this, Jesus in your name and for your sake. Isn't God good?
Jacque: All the time.
Brian: All the time, all the time. Halleluiah. Let's raise our hands together. I want to bless you. Just kind of think of your hands as kind of receptacles or conduits of this supernatural blessing that's coming from heaven right into your mortal body and into your spirit and into your life, but also into your household, into your family and into your neighborhood that you will be carrying this blessing with you. Now, may the Lord bless you and may the Lord keep you. May the Lord make his face to smile on you and give you his peace. May the Lord turn his face toward you. Lift up his countenance. May you see this smile of God over your lie. We pray this in the name of the father, son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen.
Jacque: Remember the Zoom chat. We have people to chat with here and we can chat with you online which will be on Zoom. You will see the numbers on your screen, and also on the Tuesday email click right there and go see at the Zoom chat.
Brian: This afternoon, read Luke chapter two and Luke chapter one and also Matthew chapter 2, these wonderful portrayals of the Christmas story. Let it just kind of sink into you, some of the nuances of this incredible gift of love that Jesus brought to us through the gift of our father in heaven. We pray this in the name of Jesus. God bless you have a wonderful day. It's so good to see all of you here in the sanctuary. You are such an encouragement. We love you. Bye-bye.
Transcript taken from the Sunday morning service 12-6-20. If you would like to watch the full service, click one of the links below.