Bulletins - Dishman Baptist Church (Spokane, WA)

- - Romans 8:11CSB
- - https://faithlife.com/dishman-baptist-church-spokane-wa/bulletins
- - Isaiah 53:5CSB
- - Luke 2:10–11CSB
- - Colossians 3:16CSB
Reformation Song
Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus
O Come O Come Emmanuel (Veni Emmanuel)
Introduction
Good morning everyone! Please open your bibles to Genesis, chapter 3, Genesis 3. As we begin this morning, as I am sure you have already noticed, we are now in a season of what we call Advent. Advent comes from the Latin word “adventus” which means ‘coming,’ or ‘arrival.’ We use this word to describe the arrival of Christ at his initial incarnation, when the son of God who was with God in eternity past was born in human flesh. This is the word that was used by Jerome in the 4th century to translate the Greek word “παρουσια.” This word παρουσια could easily be the topic of its own sermon series or seminary class. This word describes the abiding presence of God with mankind. It is similar to the Hebrew word we are all much more likely familiar with, Immanuel.
And that is exactly what we are starting this morning. We are preparing ourselves for the celebration of the incarnation of God as a human baby. As we remember the birth of Christ, we celebrate His incarnation by looking at the themes of hope, faith, joy, peace and love. This morning we start out by looking at hope. When we discuss the person of Jesus, hope should be one of the first things that come to our minds and to the minds of those we talk too.
But, what is hope? The very nature of hope is expectation. When we hope for something, their is an anticipation, an expectation for some kind of future fulfillment. As we sang just a bit ago, the Israelites were often encouraged to rejoice because God was going to come and save them: it was a hope they had because it was God’s promise to them. “Rejoice! Rejoice! Immanuel shall come to thee O Israel.” We’ve been in Mark for a while now, and from our series in Mark, we know that the Jews had expectations of how God was going to save them. Their hopes, however, only revealed the states of their hearts, that their priorities were not God’s priorities.
In Acts 1, the disciples were asking Jesus, even only three verses before He was taken up to Heaven if that was the time He was going to restore the Kingdom to Israel. And watch Jesus’ response:
Acts 1:6–8 CSB
6 So when they had come together, they asked him, “Lord, are you restoring the kingdom to Israel at this time?” 7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
He corrected their notion of hope by telling them what they were supposed to be doing. Their hope was so focused on Israel and her sovereignty as a nation that they had lost sight of what was more important to God - not saving nations but saving souls. It is only in Christ that we can have real hope. It is only in Christ that we can have real hope.
This morning, we are going to walk through a few passages that describe hope in, what I pray, are ways that stoke and rekindle the hope you have in Christ. And if you are here and not a believer in Jesus, our hope and prayer for you is that you would see what his hope is and why we have it and that you would also place your hope in Jesus.
Our outline is going to look something like this:
Outline:
Hope from the Curse
Hope from the Cross
Hope from the Consummation

Let’s begin with

Hope from the Curse

We’re going to pick up right after Eve and Adam ate the fruit they were commanded not to eat. Read with me in:

Genesis 3:8–15 CSB
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” 11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.” 13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.” 14 So the Lord God said to the serpent: Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life. 15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

This is just the beginning of thee curse God would pronounce. He would go on to place a curse on the woman and on the man. But notice where God begins? It is with the serpent.
Does anyone else get a bad case of the willies around snakes? I can’t stand them! There are a few things I have a legitimate fear of, mainly heights and snakes. I call them the “big ole’ nope-ropes” of nature. There is something about snakes that, I think is nearly a universal, cross-cultural phenomenon, that give people a case of the heebie-jeebies.
Satan, in the form of a serpent, convinced Eve to sin, and Adam did nothing to protect her from it. And this moment is where the chasm between God and mankind began. This is the event that made history unfold as it did - God didn’t intend for sin to be part of our lives, that is just part of our fallen condition that originated in Adam. That’s why Paul says in

Romans 5:12 CSB
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned.

And if I were to guess, I would say that the serpent’s plan was just that: to make the children of God children of Satan. And we all see how prevalent sin is - specifically when we allow the Word of God to define what sin is. We don’t need to teach babies to sin, they’re perfectly capable of figuring out that one on their own. In fact, when we grow up, most of us just get more access and brain power to sin in more creative ways. It comes naturally to us because it is part of our fallen nature. Every single one of us are guilty of sin before God.

Romans 3:23 CSB
23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;

But, praise the Lord, because of His great love and mercy, He saw it fit to make a way for us, and it was Him who planted the first seeds of hope. When speaking to the snake, He says,

Genesis 3:15 CSB
15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Notice what He did there? In so few words, He does several things:

Declares Satan failed to turn humanity over to his side: the woman he tried to turn to him would never belong to him. God put hostility between the woman and the serpent.
Declared that his offspring would be at hostility with the offspring of the woman. We know that not every person that came from Eve would come to know and love God, but I think God is referring rather to spiritual descendants. Those who would grow to love God and trust in Him were the spiritual descendents of Eve. Those who would grow to love sin and hate God were the offspring of the Devil. Not only would Satan and the woman be at odds, but God said here that He was going to reserve for himself offspring from Eve who would love and trust Him and that there would be hostility between them and those who Satan would deceive into following him. God declared that his offspring would be at hostility with the offspring of the woman.
He declared that one of Eve’s offspring would be bruised, but would crush the Devil’s head. God specifically refers to the offspring here as a specific person: “He.” This is when fallen man first heard the message of hope.
This hope was that there was one coming who would undo what Satan did and restore the offspring of the woman to God. And it is this hope that we look forward to and remember in this Christmas-Advent season. God promised to send one who would fix the real problem: sin. His goal is to see sin abolished in people’s lives - that sin would no longer have mastery of you and me, but that we would be restored to the original design. He made us imago dei, which means in the image of God. That image of God is tarnished in us because of sin, and that is why He sent Christ - to restore! He wants us to turn from our sin and embrace the promise of hope He gave in the garden. And we see a portion of that promise fulfilled in the birth of Christ. When Jesus was born, all the pieces were in place fo God predicted to come true.
But, what does God mean when He says the serpent would bruise His heel and the offspring of Eve would crush the serpent’s head? That brings us to our next point:

Hope from the Cross

Let’s think of the eternal vastness and glory of Christ for a moment.
He is the one who existed with the Father in eternity past,
He is the one for whom all things were made,
He is the one who voluntarily condescended from His great position to that of a humble human being.
Since Jesus is in fact God, what was the real impact of His earthly body being killed on the cross? It was like a bruise on his foot in the grand scheme of things. That is all Satan could do.
Pretty soon, when we jump back into Mark, we will be getting to Mark’s account of the crucifixion of Christ.
But in rising from the grave, what did Jesus do?
He robbed hell of its victory - We are no longer slaves to sin.

Romans 6:6–7 CSB
6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin, 7 since a person who has died is freed from sin.

He defanged the serpent - There is no longer the sting of dread in death for those who are in Christ

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 CSB
13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

He gave His people a reason to hope: His Cross has opened up the treasure trove of God’s grace to us through faith.

Ephesians 2:1–10 CSB
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins 2 in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. 3 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. 4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace! 6 He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. 8 For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— 9 not from works, so that no one can boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Christ’s death on the cross was the bruised heel God referred to in Genesis 3. Bur that wasn’t the end of it. God said the Satan would be dealt a fatal blow by Christ. We saw how God worked so powerfully through the death of Christ, but it all hinges on one thing: The Resurrection. When Christ rose from the dead, he put sin to death in those who would trust and believe in Him.

1 Peter 1:3 CSB
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead

Romans 6:4 CSB
4 Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.

Satan has no power in the lives of those who belong to God. We have been cleansed from sin and stand justified before God, with Christ as our intercessor to God. From our standpoint in history, it is hard to see this as hope instead of as more a matter of fact. After all, hope has a future aspect to it - it is based on something we are waiting on. We look at the coming of Christ during the Christmas season as a historical fact, not one that we are looking forward to. Many of us are so used to having Christ in our lives and seeing Christ’s influences over the last two-thousand years that a sense of spiritual apathy or even hum-drumness can shield our eyes from the beauty of the story of redemption.
But make no mistake, brothers and sisters, we do have something to look forward to. God originally gave us hope after the fall by telling us Christ would come defeat Satan. Then, we saw Christ come and become the realization of God’s promise - Satan bruised his heel bu working in people’s lives to get him crucified, but Christ crushed the serpent’s head by taking all the wrath and punishment for sin upon himself, dying and rising again. What we have to look forward to now another kind of hope:

Hope in the Consummation

As we look around our world today, there isn’t really a whole lot that inspires hopefulness, is there? Between death, pain, sickness and division, 2020 has been a year for the books, hasn’t it? Sometimes we get pulled into this idea that if the right guy would just get re-elected, or that if a certain law were to be passed, or another one struck down, that things will be better. But the problem isn’t with a political system, it’s not with racism (or more accurately - ethically-centered hatred), it’s not even socio-economic disparities between the rich and the poor! The problem we have is and have always had is sin. The problem of sin has persisted since the Fall of man and will continue; either until Christ brings us home to be with Him or comes back for the rapture. For those who don’t have Christ, who have yet to trust and believe in Christ, there is no hope for the future.
In the early 1990’s, the tomb of Ciaphus, the High Priest of the temple in Jesus’ time was found. Archaeologists on site confirmed that, no surprise, he has been dead a lot longer than he was alive. We know where he stood with Christ during his life - he neither loved nor obeyed Him, so we can imagine that the sins that he committed in life are still impacting his existence while he waits for judgement on the Day of Judgment. I don’t want to trivialize what we experience in life, but I also want to be realistic about it, too, that life is short. For those who die outside of Christ, there is no hope for the future - nothing more can be done for those who refused to believe and trust in Jesus. But for those of us who do believe, there is hope for us in the day of Judgement. And not only in the day of Judgement, but after.

Revelation 22:12–14 CSB
12 “Look, I am coming soon, and my reward is with me to repay each person according to his work. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. 14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates.

There is only one person who can do anything about the problem of sin in our lives and impact our eternal destiny! Christ!

1 Corinthians 15:20–22 CSB
20 But as it is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also comes through a man. 22 For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.

In the early church, some didn’t understand this hope. They were so convinced that Christ would be back in their lifetime that they thought that if someone died before He came back, that they would not get to go with Christ to His Kingdom. But Paul writes to remind them of the hope, the eternal hope they have in Christ.

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 CSB
13 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15 For we say this to you by a word from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Not only do we have hope in Christ in our day-to-day lives, we have hope in Christ that when the end has come, He will come back for us. Today, we are even called to keep an eye out for the coming of the Lord, to be ready for his second coming.

Luke 12:35–40 CSB
35 “Be ready for service and have your lamps lit. 36 You are to be like people waiting for their master to return from the wedding banquet so that when he comes and knocks, they can open the door for him at once. 37 Blessed will be those servants the master finds alert when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will get ready, have them recline at the table, then come and serve them. 38 If he comes in the middle of the night, or even near dawn, and finds them alert, blessed are those servants. 39 But know this: If the homeowner had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would not have let his house be broken into. 40 You also be ready, because the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

We have hope in the coming of the Lord to finally make all things new. For those who know and trust the Lord, there is amazing hope that will still have in the second coming of Jesus.

Revelation 21:4–6 CSB
4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; grief, crying, and pain will be no more, because the previous things have passed away. 5 Then the one seated on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new.” He also said, “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will freely give to the thirsty from the spring of the water of life.

Conclusion

In Christ, we have so much to look forward to! There is such a great reason for hope in Jesus. Advent and the Christmas season gives us a great opportunity. We can take time from our regular routines, which have admittedly been pretty well interrupted this year anyways, to reflect on what is really important. Where do we stand with Jesus? Is He the one in whom we place our trust? Or, is He someone we haven’t considered too much? Is He just a historical figure or one of the great “teachers” from history? Or is He the Holy One, God himself in the flesh, come as both a reason and realization of Hope for the ages? If you are saved, your position in Christ is secured because of what happened both in Bethlehem and at Calvary. If you don’t know Jesus, understand that God gave the greatest gift ever, hope. In Christ, our sins are washed away and we are made right with God. Our greatest desire is for you to know Christ and experience this hope. It is our main drive, to present everyone as mature in Christ, and that begins with trusting Him.
- - Acts 1:6–8CSB
- - Genesis 3:8–15CSB
- - Romans 5:12CSB
- - Romans 3:23CSB
- - Genesis 3:15CSB
- - Romans 6:6–7CSB
- - 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18CSB
- - Ephesians 2:1–10CSB
- - 1 Peter 1:3CSB
- - Romans 6:4CSB
- - Revelation 22:12–14CSB
- - 1 Corinthians 15:20–22CSB
- - 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18CSB
- - Luke 12:35–40CSB
- - Revelation 21:4–6CSB
O Little Town Of Bethlehem (Little Town)
- - 1 Thessalonians 5:23CSB

Romans 8:11CSB

Isaiah 53:5CSB

Luke 2:10–11CSB

Colossians 3:16CSB

Introduction

Hope from the Curse

Hope from the Cross

Hope in the Consummation

Conclusion

Acts 1:6–8CSB

Genesis 3:8–15CSB

Romans 5:12CSB

Romans 3:23CSB

Genesis 3:15CSB

Romans 6:6–7CSB

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18CSB

Ephesians 2:1–10CSB

1 Peter 1:3CSB

Romans 6:4CSB

Revelation 22:12–14CSB

1 Corinthians 15:20–22CSB

1 Thessalonians 4:13–18CSB

Luke 12:35–40CSB

Revelation 21:4–6CSB

1 Thessalonians 5:23CSB