For Nov 30

 

Sermon Notes: Radical Hope

Intro: At this time of year, the nights get longer, and the daylight hours are shorter. The differences become even more extreme the further north you are. When I was stationed in Thurso, Scotland, at the northernmost tip of country, there would be a wee bit of twilight at about 10 AM, and it would be dark again a little after 3. That meant going to work, or school, in the dark, and coming home at dark. It was more than an inconvenience; it adversely impacted people’s attitudes and states of mind. Darkness, more like the absence of sunlight, haD a strong impact on the human body. Depression and domestic issues increased significantly during that time. Conversely, as the daylight hours begin to increase, we begin to look forward to the hope of spring as flowers and trees begin to bloom. Such increasing hope improves our state of mind.

 

I. Penetrating the Darkness

A. So, it's good that the Christmas message of hope comes when the days are darkest, because darkness is also a condition of the soul, when it most needs hope. The oft quoted prophecy at Christmas, in Isaiah 9:2, portrays people walking in darkness. That darkness Isaiah referred to was the spiritual state of the Israelites, living in exile in Babylon. Before then, Israel had been living in the darkness of sin, not heeding God’s warnings for repentance. Then Babylon invaded, taking a large number of Israelites from Jerusalem to Babyon. In exile, they found themselves longing for Jerusalem, often referred to as Zion, the city of God. But its walls had been torn down. The Temple, a visible sign of the dwelling of God in their midst, their pride for all nations to see, was destroyed, leaving them feeling their God no longer dwelt among them in the once holy Temple. The God who had shown His love for them, brought them out of Egypt, across the desert, back to the land God had promised to Abraham centuries before for his many descendants, seemed to have abandoned them. Abandoned by the God who been their protector against their strong enemies. And with His departure, hope for the Messiah they had already been expecting for centuries was no longer. Too late, they now realized the depth of their spiritual darkness. Without hope. 

B. But God hadn’t abandoned them, He was only disciplining them, as a loving parent does out of love, even for a disobedient child. Through His prophet Isaiah, He gives His people that hope recorded in Isaiah 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy; they rejoice before you”. It was a radical hope that through the darkness His great light was about to dawn.

C. A few verses later, the prophecy foretells, “For to 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 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.” To the exiles, it meant their messiah was coming to deliver them from darkness to return home. He would restore their once golden years under King David, and even one of his descendants would rule from his throne forever. It was a ray of hope. Radical hope. We lit a single candle, the Candle of Hope, in our Advent wreath this morning, symbolic of hope in a dark world. Our Hymn of Preparation was about that ray of hope Jesus, the Christ, The Messiah, the spark that lit a living fire.

D. As a contemporary illustration of this concept, a tugboat sank about 20 miles off the coast of Nigeria, turning upside down before landing on the sea floor. Eleven crew members died, but the ship’s cook, Harrison, found an air pocket and waited. Both his flashlights died in the first 24 hours, so for three terrifying days, he waited, alone, crouched, shivering, deep within the hull, in the darkness of hopelessness. Imagine his joy when a bright light of divers coming to recover the bodies, suddenly penetrated the darkness, giving him a sudden hope for the future.  

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II. Genesis 17:1-8; 15-22

A. But Hope doesn’t usually come as a bright light penetrating our darkness after several days. Prior to our OT lesson, Abram and his wife, Sarai, had showed faith in God by following His call to leave their Mesopotamian homeland to go to Canaan. Pleased by their faith, God promises Abram the land all around them for their descendants for generations to come. Descendants more numerous than the stars in the sky or the grains of sand on the seashore, and that He would be their God and bless all people through him. To a married couple, especially in those times, children were their future care in old age, their Social Security, as well as what would keep them remembered in future generations.

B. Abram and Sarai would have been pleased with the hope from God’s covenant, His sacred, irrevocable promise. Except there was a possible problem. They were still childless, and Abram was already 75 years old, and Sarai 65 years old. Hope for a child would be fading rapidly as each year passed. Although God’s plan was for the promised child to be from Abram and Sarai, Sarai loses hope and offers her servant to Abram to father a child that would at least carry on his bloodline. Abram concurs, and at 86, fathers the child of the servant, Hagar, naming him Ishmael.

C. Even though Ishmael was not the promised son of Abram and Sarai, God honors His unintended promise to just Abram, saying that Ishmael too would be the father of many nations, and who did become the father of the Moslem nations that still claim ancestry through Abraham. But God’s special covenantal promise would be through the son promised to Abram and Sarai.  

D. But the good news lesson about hope from this situation is that God is always faithful to His word. We can put our hope in it. Even though humans, like Abram and Sarai, had lost hope in God’s plan for the future, and attempted to ‘fix’ it, God doesn’t change His plans. We can put our hope in God’s word, even if we don’t understand, or agree with His timeline.

E. Picking up this story in our OT reading, God repeats His covenant to the couple. He even changes Abram’s name (meaning exalted father) to Abraham (meaning ‘father of many nations’), and Sarai’s name (meaning ‘my princess’) to Sarah (meaning ‘mother of many nations’). But Abraham is still skeptical, because now 24 years had passed. Ishmael was now 14 years old and Sarah was still childless. To be the mother of nations, she would need at least one child to start with. So now, to Abram, 99, and Sarah, 89, past the age of childbearing, a child seems hopeless. But God not only tells Abraham that Sarah would bear him a son, but that his name would be Isaac. God would continue His covenant of land and descendants through Isaac, who would be the father of twelve sons, and the ruler of a great nation, which we recognize as the twelve sons, or tribes of Israel. As an exclamation point on His covenantal promise, God further tells Abraham that Sarah would bear that son within the next year. Abraham would then be 100 years old, but God’s plan would be done exactly as He said it would.

F. What makes the covenantal promise to Abraham and Sarah particularly significant, not just as an historical event, is the promise of offspring, or seed. Offspring and seed are translated here in the singular, an offspring or a seed, not plural as we might have expected of a promise of many descendants. But this was God’s promise of a Special Son, a Messiah, to be born from Abraham, and Sarah. Abraham’s son from Hagar, Ishmael, was not intended in that promise. Abraham and Sarah tried to fix God’s plan, but the birth of Ishmael didn’t alter God’s plan.

G. While Abraham may not have understood that long range prophecy, later prophets of God would further reveal the identity of that singular offspring as the promised Messiah, who would be would be descended from King David and born in Bethlehem, David’s birthplace, and rule from David’s everlasting throne.

H. And that’s the second lesson about hope. True hope, radical hope, can be found in God’s plan, which will be done as He said it will be done, not as man decides to intervene and fix things. God doesn’t change His plans, nor can we ‘fix’ them as we think they should be done. Even if it takes 25 years or more. Isaac was born the next year, according to God’s timetable, and even though the only child of a 100 year old dad, he had 12 sons whose families became the 12 tribes of Israel, exactly as God had said. But that’s what hope in God is. Radical, guaranteed hope.

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III. Romans 4:13-25

A. Paul uses the lesson of Abraham and Sarah to teach about hope in God, which he equates with believing God’s promises. Although thinking he and Sarah were no longer able to bear a child, Abraham continued to hope, putting his faith in God’s promises and so became the father of many nations. If it had been a matter of being obedient to God, if you could earn God’s gifts, then faith, a deep hope in God’s promises, would not be necessary. But against all human logic and reason, against any reasonable hope, Abraham believed. Abraham’s radical hope was not based on visible evidence, but on trust in God's promise. Paul writes in Romans 8:24, that “...hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have?  But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. Faith in God is our hope.” Or, as Hebrews 11:1 puts it. “...faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”  It took a radical hope, a deep conviction of faith to believe God’s radical promise.

B. But why did God put Abraham and Sarah through this ordeal at all? The outcome would have been in far less doubt if God had chosen a younger, childless couple. In Romans 5:2-6, Paul seems to suggest that God uses difficult situations to develop our faith “... we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”  John the Baptist, in harsh criticism of the religious leaders who took pride in their ancestry from Abraham, told them that God could raise children of Abaham from nearby stones. Their ancestral descending from Abraham was of no particular interest to God, He wanted to develop a faithful people through which to reveal His Son, the Messiah. Those who would have a radical hope of His coming. Then, according to Paul, suffering, testing of our faith, produces perseverance with perseverance leading to spiritual maturity and completeness. The development of character through perseverance is a refining process, like in the refining of metals where impurities are removed, and one’s true nature is revealed. This character is not merely moral integrity, but a tested and proven faithfulness to God, where radical hope is seen.

C. So, testing Abraham and Sarah over 25 years of waiting for God’s promise, was for removing impurities, like impatience and feeling a need to ‘fix’ God’s Plan. Testing proved their endurance, which in turn strengthened their characters. Characters that trusted God with radical hope. The aging, childless couple, Abraham and Sarah, were then an ideal couple to implement His plan of Messianic ancestry. Twenty five years of testing developed their faith, strengthened their character that produced their radical hope in God.

 

Conclusion: Abraham's faith in God's promise is the type of faith, of hope, we, as believers are called to have in Jesus. Radical hope that Abraham and Sarah’s descendant, the child born in a stable of Bethlehem, is the promised Messiah. Radical hope in this Messiah’s resurrection that would mean our own eternal life. And our radical hope in His return one day. Radical hope for people even now walking in spiritual darkness to see His great light. Amen