I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

Isaiah 8-9

Hope can be defined as “the expectation of coming good based on the person and promises of God.”
- John Mark Comer

“Hope is not about the future, it’s about the present…it obviously has to do with the future, but it’s a virtue
which is cultivated in the present. It fills the present with energy, it connects the two comings of Jesus,
so that when we are participating in them we’re not just remembering the one and believing in the other;
We are participating in the continuity of the comings.”
- Eugene Peterson

The question is not “Do we hope?” The question is “What do we hope in?”

We have hope because:

God is

Reveal Answer

.

The God who sees is the God who draws near to us.
Immanuel = God with us
Reveal Answer

forms us into the image of Christ.

“Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect,
that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.”
James 1:2-4

The counterculture nature of the Gospel is that suffering is not a setback to a whole life.
Suffering is THE WAY to a whole life.

“This is what Christian hope looks like. It doesn’t ignore fear, anxiety, and doubt; it confronts them. It holds steady, clinging to peace in the midst of chaos. Through life’s many treacherous storms…Christian hope is buoyed by something greater that has happened and something greater that is going to happen again.”
- Jay Y. Kim

3. Christ will make

Reveal Answer

“I will wait for the Lord, who is hiding his face
from the house of Jacob, and I will hope in him.”
Isaiah 8:17

“He will wipe every tear from their eyes.
There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain,
for the old order of things has passed away. He who was seated on the throne said,
‘I am making everything new!’”
Revelation 21:4-5