If you're watching online, we want to greet you.
And I say thanks for joining us, whether it's 1113 right now on a
Sunday morning or sometime in the near future.
And we want to invite you to come be with us in person.
This is your invitation. If you've been waiting for one,
you are invited. Come find us at 115 E Main
Street, right in the old historic part of downtown.
Gathered. We'll see you again soon.
Our services are at 9:00 and 10:00, 30.
I must mention that the Sunday in between Christmas, Christmas
and New Year's, we will only have one service.
We're going to give our volunteers kind of a light
weekend, so like Sunday. So that will be Sunday the 28th,
I believe it is. So that date, look for only one
service at 10 AM. Can you say 10:00 AM?
Thank you very much. Alright, if you have your
Bibles, please take and turn quite to the back of your New
Testament to the book of first Peter, which is after Hebrews
and James, if you could find those, and before Revelation and
the letters from John, first, second and third John.
So quite to the back, depending on how many notes and maps and
the likes that you have at the back of your Bible.
So first Peter, chapter 3, and I'm going to read to you from
verse 15. And this is the apostle Peter
that was a disciple of Jesus. You might remember he walked on
water and sunk, but he did walk for a little while and he denied
knowing Jesus. Remember the story of the
passion of Christ, the Easter story.
He denies even knowing Jesus, even though he'd been one of his
followers and he becomes really great early church leader that
writes a letter and his letter goes to followers of Jesus that
are in the midst of suffering and challenges and and and he
writes to them. And this is what he says in
first Peter 3, starting in verse 15.
He says, but in your hearts honor Christ.
The Lord is holy, always being prepared to make a defense to
anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.
Yet do it with the gentleness and respect.
Peter is coaching them to be ready to give a defense for the
hope that they have in Christ. So this morning and this
Christmas season, I want to talk to you about what do we do with
our hope at Christmas? What do we do with the hope that
we find in Christ in the Christmas season?
Let me pray for us, God. We have come to worship you.
We're made for it. We are made to connect with you,
to have fellowship with you, to have Konya, to have communion
with you. And we're made to have a
relationship with you. And we're made to abound in hope
and particularly this Christmas season, I pray God that you'll
speak to us and direct us. Show us what hope should look
like in the life of a believer. What do we do with the hope that
has been given to us by you? Speak to us.
We pray our hearts are open, we're ready.
And Jesus name and everyone said Amen and Amen.
The last couple years I keep going back to the theme that has
been the theme for our church and that is just a Christmas on
Main Street. Come to North Life in December
and we're going to celebrate Christmas on Main Street.
I love telling people that are friends of mine from around the
country that our church is at the corner of Main and Elm
Street. It doesn't get any more
Americana than the corner of Main and Elm in this little old
downtown area in Gate. I just love that our church sits
where it sits and that has the sense of family that we have.
And so the last several years we sing these Christmas carols
together. We just sit and sing traditional
Christmas carols and we tried to just really do Christmas in like
a traditional way. So next week we're going to have
our kids pad our kids program, our kids pageant.
And it's always so sweet man. And we don't like obsessed to do
it like pros or anything. It's just our kids.
And there's something wonderful about being in a church where
you can just get your kids up and let them tell the Christmas
story. Right.
I must tell you that early on in my career, I remember like, I
call it my career. My, my serving in the church in
my like 1993 to 95 in my early 20s, I served at a church in the
Saint Louis area. I see they were out of notes
back there as Lee's trying to find some notes.
So Laurel, maybe you can make some copies in case some people
want to grab them on their way out.
So 199395 I'm this young, you know, worship leader and working
at this church called Church on the Rock in the Saint Louis
area. It was like 3000 people attended
this church. I'm 23 years old and, and back
then I would, I would direct like like a little orchestra and
a big choir that was in a singing Christmas tree.
You ever seen this people singing in a Christmas tree?
So it's like this big, like big wooden.
It looked like a tiered cake. Then you put all these it's
greenery in it, and you'd put like, I don't know, 80 or 100
people in this tree. And so I would wear a tuxedo and
I had a baton and I was directing the orchestra.
And I really had no idea what I was doing because I don't really
read music. I play music by ear, right?
So, but I was faking everybody out.
Tom. I see.
There was like, Can you imagine me as an orchestra director?
It's true, man. So I was faking everybody out.
I got a little book on conducting and Christmas was
complicated and so we had camels and donkeys and llamas and 100
voice choir and a little orchestra and I'm in a tuxedo.
And I remember having like an out of body experience and go, I
don't think I was supposed to be doing this with my life.
This does not feel like me, man. I wanted to be like a guitar
playing worship guy, right? So I end up going to our church
in Grand Rapids, MI And funny thing there is that when I went,
if you can imagine this, I went to this church.
I moved there under Pastor's sincere guy.
But after I moved there, he said to me, he said, Kurt, I don't
really like guitar. Can you lead worship without
guitar? Can you imagine me leading
worship without guitar? It's really weird.
Like I feel terribly awkward if I don't have a guitar on when
I'm singing. I am the biggest dork.
OK, just a geek. So I did it, though, and I would
lead worship for piano and I would do these Christmas
musicals. And I lived that life.
And I would try to produce where I was planted.
But then I got to go to another place.
And what I found is that I didn't want to do super
complicated Christmas season. I wanted it just to be simple
and I wanted to do Christmas carols and, and Christmas
services. But but me personally, me doing
the big, big, big production was just, it wasn't fulfilling to
me. So my point is that now as the
pastor of our church, I always want Christmas to kind of just
be simple. And I want us to have these
ideas of like what are the main ideas and what are the main
beautiful parts? Singing Christmas carols and
Christmas pageants and Christmas Eve services.
I love them so much, but I want to focus on just the simplicity
and this idea of like, we're just going to Christmas on Main
Street. Jace is not in the room.
She stepped out for a couple minutes so I could tell a story
on her. She if you watch this, Jace
loves her hallmarked movies because she grew up speaking
German as a Croatian immigrant. She grew up speaking Germany,
German and and Germany. So she she says she loves her
hallmarked, but she puts this bark like a KT on the end of it
because that's how they would have said it in her native
language, right? So for me, it's like coming to
church. And I'm not a big Hallmark fan,
but I do like the idea of simplicity, the kind of a
Hallmark vibe at Christmas time. So the message this morning,
what I wanted to feel like is I wanted just to be the simple
reminder of this hope that we get at Christmas time.
Because the peace and the promises that are fulfilled that
bring us the hope is a certainly important to lean into as we go
through the Christmas season. OK.
And so Christmas on Main Street, I wanted to just be simple.
And so I want to bring you just a simple message this morning
about the hope that we find in Christmas and what do we do with
it. OK, now, and if you have the
notes, what I've done is when I put for Peter 3:15, I put red.
You can see there's red. What do you call it?
dot, dot, dot, right. Where there's a dot, dot, dot at
the beginning, A dot, dot dot at the end.
Why did I do that? Because really first Peter 315
here is it's it's kind of a thought in between a much longer
sentence. Much of the New Testament, by
the way, is written in long sentences, right?
And so this is a long sentence with one idea.
And in the middle of this long discourse that Peter is writing,
he says, Oh yeah, be ready to give a defense for the hope that
you have one Translation says be instant in and out of season,
ready to give answer for the hope that you have.
OK, now I want to give you the context.
So in your notes and on the screens, we'll have first Peter
3/8 through 16. So I'm going to show you verse
15. We already read what is its
context? OK, So the dot dot dots are to
show you there's ideas before and ideas after.
So watch this Peter again, this disciple of Jesus, now a church
leader apostle is writing to followers of Jesus that are
experiencing suffering and tribulation and persecution and
some of their persecutions because of their faith in
Christ. And some of it is just the
perils of life, disappointments, death of a loved one, a dream
that's dashed and is never fulfilled.
All of these things lead to a fight against the hope that we
find in Jesus. So watch.
He's going to call me saying, hey, be ready to give an answer
for the hope you have. But watch how he builds up to
it. He says finally.
Whenever a pastor or a New Testament writer, whenever they
say finally, it makes it sound like they're about to end, but
often they're not. OK, so he's he's saying finally,
but he's only in chapter 3. So there's chapter 4 and chapter
5 to come. He gets more to say.
So he doesn't really end, but he starts it by tricking him,
saying finally, OK, He says, finally, all of you have unity
of mind. I want you to be in unity.
He says, and I want you to have sympathy, sympathy and brotherly
love and a tender heart and a humble mind.
This is Peter. He's a rock.
He's a fisherman. And yet he's saying to these
followers of Jesus, this is the posture that I want you to have
humbleness and sympathy and unity.
OK, So he's writing them and he says do not repay evil for evil,
reviling for reviling, but On the contrary, bless for to this
you were called that you may obtain a blessing.
So he's saying don't curse people when they when when they
curse you, he's saying return a blessing to them, right?
This is the posture of a follower of Jesus and those
hearing the letter again, they were under great persecution and
suffering for their faith. OK, now verse 10.
Watch what he does here. He's going to quote a Psalm.
He quotes Psalm 34. OK, so as Wade and I taught
through the Psalms this past fall, what was interesting is
seeing how often in the New Testament we see the New
Testament writers quoting the Psalms.
You wouldn't know it unless you looked in the footnotes of your
Bible. But he is quoting Psalm 34 and
he says from the Psalm says for whoever desires to love life and
see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips
from speaking deceit. He's going to encourage them.
Be ready to give reason for the hope that you have.
Be ready to speak about it. But here he's saying don't,
don't speak evil with your tongue and don't speak deceit
with your tongue. And then he says, let him turn
away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue
it, for the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears
are on the are are open to the prayer, but the face of the Lord
is against those who do evil. OK, so he's quoted from the
Psalm. Then he goes on verse 13.
All of this is going to build up to Peter saying, be ready to
give an offence for the hope that you have.
Verse 13 Now who is there to harm you if you were zealous for
what is good? But even if you should suffer
for righteousness sake, you'll be blessed.
Have No Fear of them nor be troubled.
That's all the build up to. Now we get to where we start.
But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord is holy.
And always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks for a
reason for the hope that is in you.
Yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good
conscience so that when you are slandered, those who are vowed
your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
So watch this is AI love this passage of Christmas time.
What should our posture be? Because you might find that you
might get into some discussions with people about the truth of
Christmas, the truth of Jesus, etcetera.
And when you go to give in that discussion a reason for watch
your hope. Your posture should be like what
he's encouraging you to do here. Now Christmas time especially,
we should be abounding with hope so greatly that those around us
should ask, what's the reason for your peace?
What's the reason for your hope? Why are you so at ease?
This past year might have brought you something really
heartbreaking with your job, with your family, whatever.
This past year, people might look and go, wow, how do you get
hope? And you should be ready to give
an answer for it. Now I must say that this passage
is widely, widely, widely misunderstood and widely
misinterpreted. OK, misrepresented now and in
what way you might have heard, in fact, I asked some people
I'll I'll do a survey. How many of you have heard this
passage taught on in a in a fashion of where maybe someone
took it out of context and they said you should be ready at any
minute. Be ready to give a defense for
your beliefs. Has anybody ever heard this talk
before Like you're doctrine, be ready to give an answer for what
you believe your doctrine. You should be ready and in and
out of season, right? Watch this.
On Friday, Jason, I were down in Grand Rapids and she needed to
do, we needed to do some errands.
She wanted to do some shopping. And then we went to the Kindle
Mart, which is like the Christmas market.
And she grown up in Germany again, had a really lovely time
there. So Friday I'm there and she's
shopping the mall and I go to Barnes and Nobles.
I love to be in a bookstore. And one of my students, I teach
guitar and one of my students was in the first service at
Hudson and he had asked me some questions recently that were
really profound for a high school kid.
And I won't tell you what he asked, but he had some questions
that he was asked me in text. And I said, well, let's talk
about it next guitar lesson. So we he showed up and, and I
explained him, I said, well, the things that you're asking about
these are issues of like apologetics.
That's a word you might not have heard before, but apologetics,
it's, it's not an apology for Christianity, but apologetics is
when we do study and be diligent about explaining the truths of
Christianity, typically to someone who's hostile towards
Christianity, OK, Someone who doesn't believe in the doctrines
or the, or the theology that we have.
So an apologist is somebody who studies apologetics and they
have, they're there to have answers.
And these answers come up. And I believe in doctrine and
theology. If you attend our church, you
know, it's very important to me to teach truth and to teach in a
way where we grow and our understanding.
So I was saying to Hudson, my guitar student friend, I said
so. So I answered some questions for
him. But when I was in Grand Rapids,
I picked up this book and it's called The Comprehensive Guide
to Apologetics because I realized it's like, OK, when I
was in seminary in college, I studied apologetics, but it's
some time ago. And so I wanted to freshen up on
what I know and what I want to learn about apologetics.
OK. So this is a tremendous book.
It's not meant to be read from cover to cover.
I don't think it's more of a a reference book, OK, And you can
go through and a lot of renowned scholars have answered questions
in here, OK, that you can look up in the table of contents.
This is a great book written by really wonderful people.
But watch how the book starts. And it's funny, I was teaching
on this and I ran across this one like I'm teaching on this
this weekend. That's how the Lord is.
So he starts his preface, the editor, and it says this, the
most important reason to do apologetics is that God told us
to do so. And I'm like, Amen.
Yes, he has. And it's as simple as that.
He says God told us to do it, so we must do it.
So says Doctor Norman Geisler, my primary mentor.
And what are the contributors of this book?
And then he says this. God calls us to be prepared to
make a defense to anyone who asks.
And he quotes first Peter 3:15 that I was going to be teaching
on this weekend. OK.
And then he goes on and he has some other things to say.
So he says the purpose of this book is that God has commanded
us to be ready to discuss and give reason for our faith.
And I believe he's right, but oddly enough, and I don't want
to be critical, but I'm telling you, I think he's
misrepresenting this passage. There are other places, yes and
the New Testament where we are encouraged to debate and and and
come and contend for the faith. Watch here.
Second Christians, this is Paul in this occasion in chapter 10
verse 5, Paul says we destroy arguments and every lofty
opinion raised against the knowledge of God.
What's Paul's posture and debating the truth of
Christianity. We're going to destroy lofty
opinions raised against God and his truth and take every thought
captive to obey Christ. Are we to be mindful and and
versed and educated and about our doctrine?
Yes, we should be. June 3, says Beloved, although I
was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I
found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for
the faith that was once and for all delivered to the Saints.
He's like, you should fight, contend, fight for truth.
The Bible, I do believe, tells us to do this.
But does first Peter 3 tell us to do this?
No, Peter is saying be instant in and out of season.
Be ready at any moment to give defense for the hope that you
have. And the editor of this book,
again, I recommend this book. It's a great book, but he cuts
it off. He says be ready to give, to
give defense and he tries to make it seem like it's for
apologetics. And again, it's I don't want to
be critical, but I'm just saying that I really believe that
Peter, if you cut him off, you miss his point.
His point is be ready to give reason for your hope.
And when it comes to explaining our faith and God working in US,
you can know. And I, I'm going to read this
book. I am.
I'm going to get in here and I'm going to get stuff in it.
But in the end, I am aware that Peter's posture and his approach
being such that he's saying be ready to give reason for your
hope is more effective in the end for a lot of people than
knowing how to argue well and debate well.
A lot of the things that are in this book that I'm going to read
and present probably in messages in the future.
But Peter is saying the hope that you have in Jesus is a
powerful tool to point people to God, the hope that you have at
Christmas time. And what I want to show you is
that we can be stirred to greater hope and faith and trust
and peace in God by what happened in Bethlehem in a
Manger 2000 and some years ago. The Christmas story should stir
us to greater hope. And when your hope abounds to a
certain place, people will ask you about it.
And Peter's saying, be ready to tell them why you abound in
hope. Now hope is the point of the
Christmas story. Watch this Romans 1512.
This is the apostle Paul writing to the church at Rome, and he is
going to quote Isaiah, the prophet that prophesied that
Jesus would come. And and here's Paul.
And again Isaiah says he's quoting Isaiah.
Again, Paul is, he says the root of Jesse will come.
Even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him will the
Gentiles hope. May the God of hope fill you
with all joy and peace and believing, so that by the power
of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.
Paul is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah's prophesying that the
Messiah Jesus will come through the root of Jesse, and by this
he means David, the father of David, the shepherd boy who
killed the Goliath and became this great king.
His father was Jesse, and the Old Testament prophets said that
the Messiah chief. Saying that Jesus will come and
he'll give hope to the Gentiles and he'll give hope to the Jews
and the God of the Gentile. By the way, someone who's non
Jewish and he says the God of hope, I mean Isaiah calls Paul
calls God the God of hope and he'll fill you with joy and
peace and believing when you believe in Jesus, one of the
benefits, the fruit following Christ is hope and joy and
peace. Even in the midst of sorrow and
struggling, what we find is that the joy that the angels sing
about in the Christmas story, we bring you good tidings of great
joy to all men. That joy that we find in God can
coexist with sorrow and struggle, and that's the life of
a follower of Jesus. We should abound in hope,
especially at Christmas. Now I want to unpack for you
what is hope to a Christian? If I had to give it a
definition, what is hope? Because it could be this vague
idea out there that that I want to, I want to give it.
I want to give it a definition, OK?
Hope that we have in Christ is a confidence that God has today,
tomorrow, and the future, knowing that God is in control,
God has a plan, God is working all things together.
We find that in Romans 828, right?
This is a foundational truth. It's often misquoted.
Also, Paul writes in Romans and we know that for those who love
God, all things work together for good, for those who are
called according to his purpose. Some people misquote that by
saying, hey, everything works together for good.
All things work for good. That's not true.
All things do not work for good, but all things work together for
the good to those who love God and are called according to his
purpose, right. So as followers of Jesus, Isaiah
prophesied about it, Paul talked about it.
He is the God of hope and our hope is a confidence that God
has today, tomorrow and the future.
An author that I'm fond of, his name is NT Wright.
He wrote a book called Surprised by Hope and it's a wonderful
book. I encourage you can get an audio
version of it or or a, a book version of it.
It's a great read, right? And I've done Bible studies
through it in the last several years with men's groups and
other things. But NT Wright writes us, He says
hope is, at least I'm paraphrasing him, but it's a
monumental idea of his book. Surprised by Hope.
Hope is more than optimism. It's not just like positive
thinking. The world has that.
I'll just stay positive, stay positive, be upbeat, whatever.
No hope is more than optimism, but it's a confident expectation
that God is in the process of making all things new and good.
God is making this world that is wrong, right When God builds the
garden of even creates the Garden of Eden and puts Adam and
Eve there, and they disobey God and they're cast out of the
garden, not as a punishment. They're cast out of the garden
because now that they've eaten from this tree, they will live
forever, but they'll live forever distant from God.
So when God casts them out, he's starting his process to redeem
us, right? And so he puts them out.
So they will die, but they can then be resurrected and God will
redeem us. And that's the plan from Genesis
chapter 3 on the Bible is that it's a story of God leading his
people home, bringing us back to redemption.
So in Genesis 315, it says, I will put this is God speaking to
the snake or Satan in the garden?
And he says, I will put enmity between you and the woman.
Now, who's the woman that he's Speaking of?
We believe it's Eve. I'm not Eve.
I'm sorry. We believe it's Mary who will
deliver Jesus. So you and the woman and between
your offspring and her offspring, he shall bruise your
head and you shall bruise his heel.
OK, so God is saying, hey, here's the plan.
Through the woman, through Mary, Jesus will be born.
And when he is Satan, you, you, you'll bruise his heel, but he
is going to crush your head. You'll be done.
God is going to be victorious in the end.
That's the hope that is right there in Genesis.
Then in Luke 2, talking about the Christmas story, watch it
says, and this is the shepherd, the story of the shepherds and
the the the angels. And in the same region there
were shepherds out in the field keeping watch over their flock
by night. And an Angel of the Lord
appeared to them and the glory of the Lord shone around them
and they were filled with great fear.
And the Angel said to them, if you're not and others have hope,
for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be
for all the people. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
What is the good news that the angels bring?
They're bringing the news that God's plan is unfolding, the
prophecies of the Messiah to come in the Old Testament.
They're coming to pass. God's on the move.
He's working. You can have hope in this.
He is fulfilling what had been told and Matthew's telling the
story of Jesus being born in chapter 1.
It's the Angel having this discussion, Gabriel having a
discussion with Joseph, who will be Jesus's earthly father, if
you will. And it says she will bear a son,
and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his
people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had spoken by the prophet.
Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear Son, and they shall
call his name Emmanuel. This is quoting again the Old
Testament prophets who said that God will be called the Messiah,
being born in Bethlehem will be called Emmanuel, which means God
with us. God's not distant, He's come to
dwell among us and it gives us hope.
Luke telling again more of the Christmas story.
This is the story of Mary talking with the Angel Gabriel
when he tells her that you are going to give birth to Jesus.
And he says to her, for nothing will be impossible with God.
You can hope nothing, nothing is impossible is what Gabriel says
to her. And then Mary said after that
she said, Behold, I am the servant of the Lord, let it be
to me, according to your word. And the Angel departed from her.
The story of Christmas is a story of hope.
Seeing that God is in charge, He is fulfilling his plans and His
purposes, and we can have this confidence in it.
Now, what does living with hope, with God, hope that comes from
God? What does it look like for
Christians? Dallas Willard says this.
He says confidence in God is the foundation of a meaningful human
life, right? So when you look at all of the
chaos in the world and you look at all of the drama in
situations, you know, it can lead to just hopelessness,
right? People can just give up on life
and they go, oh, man, just, you know, just live, die and pay
your taxes, right? But no, God wants us as
Christians. We don't live that way.
We live, it's going, we can trust that God is working things
out. So I, I, I would illustrate it
to you this way. Jason and I were, as I said, we
were down in Grand Rapids on Friday and we went on Friday
knowing that there was going to be a snowstorm and coming back
from gather. We get snow all the time, right?
We're used to it. So we're down there, we're
shopping and then we wanted to go to this Chris, Chris kindle
marked and we we were just having a good time.
So we stayed longer and we didn't leave until around 730
knowing there was going to be snow as we drove N well, it
snowed and it really snowed hard right If you were out and about
Friday night. So it got dark and we it was
pretty good until we got that Big Rapids and then from Big
Rapids all the way to Gaylord. It was just like white out.
OK. And you've driven in this.
I know. I mean, you, you're you're from
the north, you know, So we're driving.
It's dark. And this is a story where I want
to illustrate what hope looks like in the life of a follower
of Jesus. I'm 6 foot 2.
And so I always put the seat as far back as it can go in our two
cars, right? Jace's car in my car.
But Jace is 5 foot two. She says she's 5 foot three.
It's not true. OK, But, but she puts the seat
all the way forward, OK, when she's driving all the way
forward, right? Well, when I'm driving in
whiteout conditions like that, I move the car seat forward,
right? Because I want to be right up
here like this, right? So it's it's white out.
You know, when you're driving like that and somebody passes
you on the left really fast, what happens?
Stirs up all the snow and then you can't see anything, right?
And I, I, I tell you that sometimes life is like this.
It's like you're feeling your way through the dark or you're
feeling your way through a snowstorm and you can't see the
way. But there was, you know, what I
do in that situation is I try to find a car that's going about
the pace that I'm going to go. And then I just follow their
lights, right? You've done this, right?
Just follow their lights. And I'm like, I'm glad I'm not
the one out front, right? So people flying by and when
they'll fly by and it's all this confusion, I'm just like seat
forward and like knuckling it. And I just like keep following
Kurt. Just keep going, man.
Just keep following those lights.
Here's my point is that when it's hard to see the way we are
followers of Jesus and Jesus shows the way and it's like
following him through through storms.
John 14, four through 6. This is Jesus talking to Thomas
after the resurrection. And Jesus says, and you know the
way to where I'm going? Oh, Jesus says to Thomas, you
know the way where I'm going, you know where I'm going.
And Thomas, man, he gets a bad rap, but I just love his honest
and we call him doubting Thomas. He was the disciple that didn't
believe that Jesus was resurrected and he said he
wouldn't believe until he touched the, you know, the
wounds in Jesus side and that's OK, right?
It's I'm like that. And but Jesus says to Thomas,
you know the way where I'm going and Thomas goes, Lord, we don't
know where you're going. I don't know where you're going.
How can we know the way? And Jesus said I'm the way and
I'm the truth and the life and no one comes to the father.
In other words, no one gets home except through me.
So when I'm driving white knuckling Friday night, I'm
like, if I keep following, then I'll get home.
Now, The thing is, I follow far enough where I I'm following
this person in front of me, knowing that they could end up
in the ditch, right? If they end up flying off the
road, then I'm not following them anymore, right?
So I'm following just far enough back where it's like, Oh my
gosh, they're going off the road, not me, right?
So I can't trust that they'll stay in the road, but I'm
following them. The thing with Jesus is that
he's the way the truth and the life and the Holy Spirit that is
in US can lead us through Blizzard like conditions in
life. And we go through life with this
hope that comes in Jesus. Sometimes it looks like we're
white and huckling it, but even in those moments it's like, OK,
God's stirring me a confidence that you're leading me.
And that's the point of the Christmas story.
Jesus fulfilling God, fulfilling his promises to us.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.
And I'll tell you another story. If you feel like you've lost
hope this Christmas season, know this.
That hope is in the house or I'll say in the car.
And what do I mean by this? Sometimes you'll go through life
and you're a follower of Jesus. And maybe there was a season in
your life where you were idealistic and you believe God
promises in his word. But then life happened and maybe
you've gone to living, even though you're Christian, you're
you believe Jesus is Lord and he's the Lord of your life.
But yet you find your place and a place where like you've lost
hope. Where is it?
And you seem hopeless. I compare it to this.
I have an Apple iPad and, and I use it all the time.
And I have an Apple Pencil, right?
And I need my pencil the way that I use my iPad, my pencil, I
need it right? Need at least I want it right.
And so a couple of times I've lost my Pencil, my Apple Pencil,
but I've lost it like in the house.
Like I know I got home with it. I know it's here somewhere.
It's in the house. I just have to find it.
And sometimes it's hard. And I'll tell you a couple of
times I've lost it for like two or three weeks and then I'll
find it like a certain, I looked under the bed, but I couldn't
find it. And then finally it's like, oh,
it was there under the bed, right?
Or in the couch was in the couch or dropped out of my, you know,
out of my case or I compared to this.
We were in Texas a couple weeks ago for Thanksgiving with
family. And my car is not such, but
Jason's car is a car where you have the FoB, right?
You have the key fob, right? And those with the key fob you
just as long as the keys on you, you can get in the car and you
can start the car, right, right. And so we lost the key fob, but
we lost it in the car. We couldn't find it.
I had my flashlight, I'm looking everywhere.
I'm moving the seats forward and backwards and I'm moving things
up. But the crazy thing is, is that
it was in the car. So we kept starting the car.
We went for three days, we just kept driving everywhere.
It's like it's in the car, I can't find it, but it's
somewhere here. And to me, hope is like this
because sometimes you're like, I can't quite find it.
I don't feel it. I don't feel hopeful and yet you
can remind yourself, it's like, well, I get up and I go to work
every day. I push the start button and I
get there and then I come home and I feel hopeless.
But I'm telling you, hope is in the car.
Hope is in the house. God has hope available for you.
You just have to be diligent to keep looking for it.
And the Christmas story is especially a time where we can
find hope in the promises fulfilled in Bethlehem, in the
Manger with the donkeys and Mary and Joseph.
God fulfilled his promises. And there were times like
they're occupied by the Romans. It was a time where great hope
seemed to be like, oh man, where is hope?
Well, it's in the house, it's in the car.
It's there. You just keep going and then
it'll show up. You'll find it, but you have to
be diligent to say, God, give me hope again, show it to me again.
And some of you have lived. Maybe something happened.
I don't know what your story's been, but maybe there was
something that got dashed your hope and you just kept starting
the car and kept going. But you want to find it.
You want to put your fingers on it again.
And what Peter is saying, man, this is I, I, I pray you get
this because this is such a really profound truth for
Christians to get that Peter's not saying give, be ready to
give a dogmatic, precise right argument for your doctrine.
I believe in doctrine. Yes, I want to be right
doctrine. I so want that.
But the bigger influence to the world around you is when you
have hope and it makes no sense. Paul calls it peace.
That goes beyond understanding. And when you walk, it's because
you have Jesus and you have the Holy Spirit.
You get through things like you never thought you'd get through
and you keep going and you have hope still, even though the
circumstances like those that Peter is writing to and first
Peter, their lives were such where maybe they should have
been hopeless, but they're not. They have hope.
And Peter says be instant, ready in and out of season to give
reason, a defense for your hope, the Christmas season, the
Christmas story. As you lean in in the next
couple weeks, my hope and my prayer for you is that you'll
say God renew and stir up a trust in you, working all things
together for the good of those who love you and are called
according to your purposes, God. As I see what you did in
Bethlehem, let it affect the way I follow you, even though
sometimes it feels like I'm white knuckling it.
The Psalmist writes this and these are great prayers.
Maybe these could be some prayers that you'd pray in the
days to come. In Psalm 130, verse five, he
says, I wait for the Lord. My soul waits.
And in his word, I hope. Wow, that's a great one to
memorize. I wait for the Lord God.
I'm waiting for you. God, show up.
Stir in me greater hope. God, give it back to me again.
Psalm 39, seven, this psalmist says, and now, O Lord, for what
do I wait? My hope is in you.
Even the Old Testament writers were declaring where their hope
came from. It came from God.
So to end, I just want to ask you a couple questions.
How are you with your hope? Are you abounding in hope?
If you've never given your life to Christ, well then I would say
you have not yet received the hope that comes from God, that
comes through the Holy Spirit, that comes through Christ.
So then I'm going to pray here in a few minutes and I want to
invite you to make the decision to follow Jesus, to commit your
life to Him and receive the hope that you can only find in Him
and eternal life that you get now.
You don't have to wait to die to get eternity in you.
You get it when you're born a second time in Christ.
OK, but if you're a follower of Jesus, where how are you and
your hope? You might say, I have so much
hope. God has got me through so much.
And I'm just abounding in hope that I say this Christmas
season, I hope that someone asks you about it.
I hope that they ask you about it because remembering the
goodness of God shown at the birth of Christ builds our hope.
Remembering the story of Jesus, it should stir us to greater and
greater hope. And then I want to encourage you
to do this practice giving reason for the hope that you
have. Maybe you just wanted to maybe
drive into work. You want to tell God, God, this
is what I would tell somebody if they asked me about my hope.
You could say, yeah, it looks like I should have been
hopeless. Look like your upbringing.
Maybe you came from really dysfunctional place and you're
you should be like this and you're not.
And you go, man, I got hope every everybody in your family
system, your family is maybe they were hopeless types, but
you found hope. And you get to say I found it in
Christ. I found it in Jesus and my life
was altered greatly because of the hope that I found in Jesus.
Figure out how you can testify and give a defense instant in
and out of season for the hope that you find in Jesus,
especially this Christmas season.
Let me pray for us. God, I'm so grateful for this
passage. I thank you for the passages and
it occurs to contend for the faith and where Paul says we
tear down untruths and those who speak against the knowledge of
God. Thank you for those passages,
but this one and encourages us to be ready to explain and give
reason for our hope. God, thank you for Peter's
encouragement, and I pray that as a church, our posture will
not be dogmatic arguments about politics or denominational
differences or anything. We want to contend for truth.
Yes, God, but we want to do it like Peter encourages, with
humility and sympathy and unity. Let us be unified, God, I pray
in the hope that we find in you. Let that be something that draws
us together. We share it in common hope that
we have in you and I pray that you'll stir it up this Christmas
season and in the next few weeks while we're recalling and
studying and remembering the Christmas story, even next week
when our kids are telling the story in the simplest way, I
pray that we'll renew and strengthen our hope as found in
you. And then still in a prayerful
minds mindset, I, I want to give a moment.
If you're here this morning, you've never surrendered your
life to Christ. You've never made that decision
to become a Christian. What does that look like?
It means you get to a place in your life where it's like, OK, I
want Jesus to be the Lord of my life.
You are created to have a relationship with God and God
through the birth, birth of Jesus in Bethlehem and his life
and his resurrection, his crucifixion.
That's God's plan to redeem you, to win you back.
And but you God doesn't force it on us.
Instead, we are to believe in our hearts that Jesus is Lord
and to confess it with our mouth.
And that's when we receive the salvation that comes through
Jesus. So this morning.
I want to invite you into that relationship.
It takes a turning away from your own sin and you say, OK, I
no longer want to be the Lord of my life.
I want to surrender my life to Jesus and ask him to be my
Savior. My Lord, you give him control
over your life and your pursuit of him.
So I'm going to pray and I encourage you to believe in your
heart and to confess it as I pray.
Pray with me to receive his salvation.
You can pray something like this.
Heavenly Father, I come to you in Jesus name and I believe
that, Jesus, you are God and you were born in Bethlehem as a
baby. God, you became a human being
and you came and you dwelt among us, and you went through so much
to redeem us, to win us back. So Jesus, I want to follow you,
I want to receive your salvation.
So I repent of my sin and others.
I want to turn away. I don't understand everything
about doctrine and scripture yet, but I do want to grow in
it. But I make this decision
initially to confess with my mouth that you were Lord, and I
want to receive your life and I want to follow after your ways.
Lead me as we white knuckle it sometimes to life.
And then I think you do put eternity in me now and I will
spend forever with you with that eternal life that I can
experience even here in this side of eternity.
I receive you now in Jesus name and everyone said Amen.
If that's you this morning and you decided to become a follower
of Jesus, then e-mail me kurt@northlifechurch.org or find
me after the service or tell a friend that you know as a
Christian, say I made this decision, I'm in.
And then our next encouragement to you would be to be baptized,
which we'll have here in a few months.
So we encourage you to be baptized, which is an hour
expression of what God has done in you.
When you are dunked underwater. It's, it's inside of God
cleansing you and resurrecting you in him.
All right, let's all stand together.
Thank you so much for coming. I hope that you enjoy the sunny,
beautiful day. I'm going to go home and blow my
driveway out. I did it twice yesterday and
there was still a ton of snow when I left this morning.
So I will be doing that this afternoon.
Don't forget, ladies, you can sign up on your way out for the
ladies Christmas table to sign up to A10 or to host a table.
I want to send you out with a blessing.
So if you'll prepare your heart to receive this blessing before
you go, and now may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may
he make his face to shine upon you.
And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of glory
made abound to you. And may the peace of God, that
that surpasses all understanding, may surprise you
in the midst of the challenges that life brings.
And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God, that's new every morning.
May it be especially new to you in your mornings to come.
And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind and your hope, your salt and your light.
Go now and be salt and light into the world.
You were blessed. Merry Christmas.
We'll see you again soon.