This Christmas season we’re doing a short series of messages called “Unexpected.” Even though the coming of the Christ was the single most anticipated event in Jewish history. . . no one could have imagined all the unexpected ways God would work out his plan. This morning we want to begin by talking about the unexpected ways God brings HOPE into our lives.
I believe everyone needs hope. I believe we need hope just as much today as those ancient people of long ago, that we read about in the Bible, who first beheld the glory of God, arriving as a child in that manger. There are a couple of verses in your Bible that explain our need for hope in two ways. First, there is Romans 8:22, which says, “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together with labor pains until now.” Second, there is Romans 8:23, “Not only that, but we ourselves who have the Spirit as the firstfruits—we also groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.”
Lara & I have a little Schnauzer pack at home. We have Miss Maddie Mae, Rudy, and RockE. Maddie is the senior citizen. In dog years, she’s as old as Noah—950 years. Every day Lara is on the Internet figuring out ways to extend her life. And every day, FedEx delivers some new pill, or supplement to extend Maddie’s life. Our veterinarian is pretty impressed with Lara—he told Lara’s parents he wants Lara to look after him in old age, because of all the things she figures out to do. I confronted him, I asked, “Have you seen our Amazon bill? Have you thought how you’ll get rid of all those cardboard boxes that pile up in the garage?”
But Miss Maddie Mae—she’s our longest living Schnauzer. But every time she wakes up in the morning she groans. If you pick her up, if you take her outside, if you so much as look at her! The Bible says creation groans—that even our bodies groan. Even if you are a Christian—even if you are filled with the Spirit of the Living God—your body groans for redemption. In short, we groan for hope.
I got the idea for this series when we started the Dinner with Jesus Luke series. In the beginning of Luke, we read about an elderly couple named Zechariah and Elizabeth. In every way, this was a couple who groaned for hope. Do you remember them? Zechariah was a notable priest. His wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron himself. Remember Moses and Aaron? They were dyed in the wool Jewish people. They were righteous in God’s sight. Without blame in regard to the commands of God. Luke tells us they are quite old, not unlike what the Bible says about Abraham and Sarah in Genesis. A personal source of shame for them is that they had always been childless.
So, one way you can look at hope is to simply ask, “What makes you groan?” In the Bible, nobody is exempt from groaning, no thing is too big, no thing is too small. But here’s the deal: God sees Zechariah and Elizabeth in their groaning and He sees you in your groaning.
Now before we go further, we should distinguish between two categories of hope. There is the universal, capital “H” kind of hope, that all people everywhere across all ages need. And there is the personal, lower case “h” kind of hope, that applies to our personal longings and groanings. Zechariah and Elisabeth's lower case “h” hope and groaning was their childlessness.
In Luke’s gospel, God unexpectedly shows up to give Zechariah and Elizabeth hope! Because there were so many priests in Israel, the Jews would use a “lottery system” to select that priest who’d have the honor of serving in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. It just so happens the “lottery” falls on Zechariah. Here is the thing. There is so much mystery. To what extent is luck, luck? And to “what extent”, and just over “which things”, or even “when”, is God sovereign or not? What if they hadn’t drawn Zechariah’s straw?
In Luke 2, Zechariah is in the temple, praying at the altar of incense, and as he ministers the Great Angel Gabriel appears to him and tells him his prayers have been heard! Gabriel says He and Elizabeth (despite their old age) are going to have a son, and they are to name him “John.”
Maybe there was a time in your life when God fulfilled one of your dreams? Maybe for love? Maybe for a child? Maybe for something else. Maybe God hasn’t yet fulfilled a wish, or longing, or groan… and maybe its stirred doubt? Maybe this Christmas you’ve been saying, “Why not, God? Why others but not me?”
We have to be careful how we talk about hope. God is just as much attuned to our everyday needs, and groanings for lower case “h” hope as our universal and eternal groaning for captive “H” Hope. Well, what lower “h” hope do people have? Is it not that God in some unexpected way would reverse our fortunes?
If you’re shamed, your prayer is for God to lift your shame. If disgraced, God shower me with grace. If childless, if barren, what is your hope? If unmarried, if divorced, if broken, if unloved, if feeling all alone…what is your hope? If humbled, if of low status, if hungry, if empty, poor, depressed, if filled with dread or fear or anxiety. Like Zechariah we should pray about the things for which we groan most!
In the Bible, God is a God who works unexpectedly in all manner of circumstances to reverse our misfortunes. Maybe you drew the last straw, but it ends up being the straw God uses. The beatitudes of Jesus. You groan in hunger; God wants to fill you. You weep in sadness; God wants you to have laughter and joy. 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” Then wait, “Okay Lord, what are you going to do?”
Now another feature of Scripture is that even as we were our out of lower “h” hopes and groaning, in Christ, God is working out that greater, universal eternal Hope that is common need of all humankind. So, in the Christmas story, you have two birth announcements. The first is that Zechariah and Elizabeth will have a son and are to name him John—as in John Baptist. But the second is that the hope of Israel (the Christ or Messiah) is coming right behind him. John will turn the children of Israel to the Lord their God…. He will make them ready for the coming of the LORD! Zechariah responds to Gabriel’s announcement almost the same way Abraham and Sarah did in the Old Testament. Do you remember Sarah laughed at God? In Luke 1:18, Zechariahs asks, “how can I know this…” Not, “I believe…” but “How can I be … CERTAIN!?”
Gabriel takes Zechariah’s voice away for nine months as a sign to him. He tells Zechariah, “these things will be fulfilled in their proper time.” Five months later Elizabeth is “showing.”
Long before Zechariah and Elizabeth, the Bible tells us the story of Abram/Sarai.
"The Believer"
(4) A fourth category of person is what the Bible calls a “Believer.” In the Old Testament, Abraham was a believer. In Romans 4:1-3, Paul asks, “What did Abraham our forefather, according to his own flesh, discover about this matter of justification? If in fact, Abraham was justified by [achiever] works, he had something to boast about—but not before God! But what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Credited! Whatever does Paul mean? He explains it so clearly! Romans 4:4-5, “Now to the one who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation. However, to the one who does not work, but trusts God who justifies the ungodly, their faith is credited as righteousness.”
Holy Smokes! Are you reading the same Bible as me? You can come before God and collect your wages, or you can come before God and collect His gift! Romans 6:23 says, “The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Let me ask you, what kind of deal do you want to make with God? Do you want to collect earned wages or do you want to receive his free gift? Do you want to take the gamble that God is somehow obligated to you, or would you just receive the gift that God, who justifies the ungodly, has prepared for you?
Abraham didn’t come before God seeking wages. He believed. He trusted God, and God credited to his account, God gifted to Him righteousness, God granted to him mercy, grace, salvation, and eternal hope. By the way, King David, when he had sinned came before the Lord, confessing his sins as well. But David wasn’t seeking wages, he was seeking the gift of God.
In Romans 4:6-8 Paul explains, “David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the one to whom God credits righteousness apart from [achiever] works: ‘Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the one whose sin the Lord will never count against them!’” David didn’t say, “No big deal.” David didn’t say, “blessed are those who are not as bad as their neighbor.” He didn’t say, “Blessed are those who achieve more.” He certainly didn’t saw, “pay me my wages… let me reap what I’ve sown.” In faith Abraham, in faith David said, “forgive me… cover me… justify me, don’t count my sin against me, don’t punish me as I deserve, give me something I don’t deserve, give me credit, give me the gift of righteousness!”
Listen, the whole middle part of Romans 4 is important. In verses 9-12, Paul talks about how we put a false sense of security in religious rites. If you were a Jew, that was circumcision. Circumcision wasn’t a sign pointing not to your self-righteousness and self-sufficiency. Circumcision was a sign point to your need to be justified externally, apart from your works, apart from your achievement, by grace! Circumcision was a sign you were seeing God’s righteousness and justification. Circumcision was also a seal, not of you guaranteeing yourself to be faithful… but a seal guaranteeing God’s faithfulness… that God would be faithful to all he promised!
In verses 13-15, Paul talks about how we derive a false security in being an achiever, a law-keeper. But the basis of our security isn’t rooted in something in us… it’s rooted in the promise of God! As a believer, my standing before God, my trust isn’t in something I did, something I earned, something I’m owed by God… my trust is based in something God said, that God promised, that Christ finished on that cross, something I haven’t earned, that God isn’t obligated to give, but that because of God’s mercy and grace, he has freely given… not a wage but a gift!
Look what Paul says, Romans 4:16-17: “16 Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham’s offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who have the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17 As it is written: “I have made you a father of many nations.” He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.”
By the way, you might take a pen and highlight all the amazing things Romans 4 tells us about God.
Rom 4:3, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”
Rom 4:5, “to the one who doesn’t work, but trusts God…”
Rom 4:5, to the one who trusts God, “who justifies the ungodly.”
Rom 4:7, God “credits righteousness apart from works”
Rom 4:10, under what circumstances does God credit righteousness? It wasn’t after circumcision but before!
Rom 4:16, “the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed.”
When did Christianity become all about us, and stop being about Christ? Romans 4:17, it is “God who gives life to the dead and calls into being things that were not.” Not just Christianity, but all of Judaism as well… Abraham is the patriarch of Judaism, right? Not just Christianity, but all of Judaism… there has only been one deal. And the deal is that we trust God for justification, preciously out of concern that we godless, moralistic, achievers might otherwise get exactly what we deserve… the wages of our sin, death, eternal judgment, and damnation.
Only God can give life to the dying and dead. Only God can call into being, and declare righteous, those who are not nor can ever be in themselves. When did Christianity become all about us? I do, I declare, I work, I sing, I say, I worship, I tithe, I serve, I achieve, I give, I deserve, I die, God owes, God’s obligated…
That doesn’t sound like very good news. That certainly doesn’t sound refreshing. Should we rather put our faith, our trust, and hope in God? God save me from my wages. Spare me from what I deserve. Deliver me from your perfect just wrath. Forgive me… cover me… justify me, don’t count my sin against me, don’t punish me as I deserve, give me something I don’t deserve, give me credit, gift me righteousness!
Romans 4:18-25, “18 Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” 19 Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead—since he was about a hundred years old—and that Sarah’s womb was also dead. 20 Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.”
I want Abraham’s deal!
The eternal hopes… both couples understood even larger hope…
Unexpected Hope
How God answers