Hope (Advent Series)

Romans 15 and the Hope of Advent

We'll go ahead and open up your copy of God's Word. Romans chapter 15. We're going to primarily look at verse 13, but I want us to start reading in verse 8 of Romans chapter 15. Most of you in here are very familiar with the book of Romans.

This is the Apostle Paul's kind of magnum opus. This is theology at its finest. This is such a beautiful book of truth here. And as Paul gets fairly close to the end of this letter to the Romans, he begins to speak to them about the connection with the Jewish people and the background of the saints of the old and the connection that we have now.

When he gets to chapter 15 and verse 8, he says, For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness. What Paul is saying is that God had prophesied that he would send his Messiah to the people that he had chosen, the offspring of Abraham.

And this shows God's truthfulness in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles and sing to your name.

And again it is said, Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people. And again, Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples extol him. And again Isaiah 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. This is the reading of God's perfect, holy, inspired word.

Let's go to him once again. We need his help, don't we? We need the help of the Holy Spirit to illuminate truth to us from his word. Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you once again and we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the opportunity to speak about your truth. And Father, I pray that you would illuminate our hearts and minds to that truth. We desperately need your help, God. We, as frail, finite beings, created beings, oftentimes take your very words that are clear, that are precise, that are perfect, and then we distort them and we manipulate them, sometimes knowingly, sometimes not knowingly.

But God, help us not to do so this morning. Help us to speak from your word that you would illuminate this truth to us and that we could dive deeper into this great hope that you speak of. In Christ's name, amen.

There is an uncertainty in hope, isn't there? We hope in all types of things. We hope that the weather is going to be good tomorrow. We've got our big event tomorrow and it doesn't look like the weather is going to be so good, but we hope, don't we?

We hope when we're kids, right, that we get that one Christmas present that we wanted so desperately. And we hope and we hope that some of you are like me, you go to the grocery store or the gas station and you run the debit card and you cross your fingers and you hope that it's going to go through, right?

You know the feeling. We have this hope and we hope that more serious things at times, we hope that our children grow up to be healthy and happy. We hope that maybe the company that we've worked for for years or that we love doesn't keep downsizing and we lose our jobs.

We hope that the pastor will cut a sermon short today. Keep hoping, yeah. But we hope in all types of things and all of these things have one thing in common. It is a nagging and sometimes debilitating reality of the unknown.

We can hope. We may have good indicators. We may have our weather app and it's pretty consistent and we may hope that the weather is good tomorrow because it looks like it's going to be good, but let's be honest, we're in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

Tomorrow it could be sunny and summer for the swimming pool. It could rain a monsoon and flood us all out or it could snow. We don't know until it actually happens, but there's still a level of uncertainty.

We don't know if our children are going to stay healthy. We don't know if they're going to be happy in their life. We don't know. We may set all the things in place to go, okay, I want them to be happy and healthy, but you just don't know.

You certainly don't know if I'm going to preach long today. That's for me and God to know. But when the scripture speaks of hope, both in the Old and the New Testament, it's speaking of something categorically different.

Something very different. You see, when Paul speaks about the circumcised and the promises given to the patriarchs there in verse 8 of what we just read, he's doing so to point to God's truthfulness and God's faithfulness, as I mentioned when we were reading.

He's pointing out, hey, God was true to his word here, and he wants us to see that. He's pointing to that truthfulness and that faithfulness for both the saints of old and the saints to come. As a matter of fact, look there in that chapter in verse 4, previously to that.

Look at what Paul says. He says, for whatever was written in the former days, the old scriptures, the Old Testament, was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scripture, we might have hope.

A certain hope that is based on promise, which is precisely how we see the Old Testament saints viewed these promises. How did the Old Testament saints view the promises of God? How did they see them?

How were they able to understand and comprehend the promises of God at any level? It was by faith, right? The same way we comprehend God's promises. The same way we can even begin to. By faith. And what does the writer of Hebrews say about faith?

What is faith according to scripture? The writer of Hebrews says in chapter 11, the first two verses, he says, now faith, let me define it for you. He's speaking about the faith of Abraham and he's speaking about the faith of coming Christians.

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for. It seems like an oxymoron, doesn't it? Like, how do you have assurance in what's hoped for in our understanding of hope? And how do you have hope in something and still have assurance?

It doesn't seem to make sense in our comprehension of what's being said. But that's the writer of Hebrews. He says, hey, this is faith. The assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

And it's secure because he goes on, he says, for by it the people of old received their commendation. By what? Faith. That's how the Old Testament saints believed. They had faith in what? What were the Old Testament saints, what was their faith set on?

The promise of God, wasn't it? Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. What did he believe? What would he believe God in? He believed that God would provide a way. He believed that God would be true to his word and he believed that God would send a Messiah.

That's what Abraham believed. That's what all the saints of old believed. And they had great anticipation. But in that great anticipation, it was not wishful thinking. They weren't like that debit card and the finger crossed.

There was no anticipation in there. It was not that kind of anticipation. No, it was one of assurance. It was one of certainty that they had. Otherwise, it's not the faith that the writer of Hebrews is speaking of.

The assurance of things hoped for. So what gave them so much certainty and hope? Because the hope spoken of in the New Testament is not about optimism. It can't be. It can't be an optimistic view. As a matter of fact, if you look at many of the Old Testament saints, there's not a lot to be optimistic about.

Let's be honest. Think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They knew good and well they were getting thrown in that fire. They have no idea that God is going to keep them from being burned. That's not very optimistic, is it?

They just know God is going to deliver them because of faith and assurance of things hoped for. Think of Daniel. When Daniel is being lowered into the lion's den, you know good and well in Daniel's mind, I'm getting eaten alive today.

There's not a lot to be optimistic about. Look at what King David suffered when he's being chased by King Saul. It was before he was king, right? Before David was king. But David's being chased. He's having to hide in the mountains and in caves because the king wants to kill him.

That's not a lot to be optimistic about. Abraham, way too old to have children. You read those Old Testament stories of the Old Testament saints, there's an awful lot of tragedy. And in most cases a lot more tragedy than any of us in this room have ever experienced.

So it's not a faith based upon optimism. It's not an anticipation that is based upon this rose colored glasses of what is to come. This hope wouldn't have anything to do with their circumstances, yet they had great hope because their hope was based on, get this, a person.

Just like our hope is based on a person. It's the exact same faith. The person that they were waiting on. The writer of Isaiah, he says in chapter 40 verse 31, it's a very common verse, well known, but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.

This word, wait, when we read it we think, well, I guess I should just sit and wait for God to move. That's not how the Old Testament saints worked, right? That's not how Isaiah worked. It wasn't just this waiting on God when you were inactive and doing things.

So what is this wait? Well, it comes from a Hebrew word, kava. This word is a compound word. It comes from two different Hebrew words. And this word comes from the word kav, which you can hear our word, cord.

It's where we get our idea of a cord. Think of like a cable, right? This cable is being stretched out and you pull this cable tight. And when it's matched up, when that word kav is in that compound Hebrew word kavah, it is this idea of this cord with pressure.

And this pressure is ever building, ever building. And it's being pulled in two different directions. And you can see it. You could see the vibrations in this cord, in this kavah. And at some level, you know for certain something has to give.

It can't keep putting enough pressure, more pressure on it. Either this side that's connected to this kavah, this cord is going to snap. This side is going to snap or the very fibers of this cord are going to snap.

And it's being, this pressure is pulling tighter and tighter. That's the Hebrew word for weight. It's kavah. There is an anticipation because there is most certainly going to be a snap at some point. It produces tension until a release.

This is what Isaiah is telling us. For us to kavah on the Lord. A great expectation. It's kind of like us with the jack in the box, right? You remember the movie Elf where he's testing all the jack in the boxes and he sets aside all the broken ones, right?

But most jack in the boxes, they always work, don't they? And you know they're going to work. That stupid little clown is going to pop up at some point and you're just playing the music and you're like, I know it's going to scare me any second now.

But there's an anticipation in it, isn't there? Like you know that's coming. Like it's a given. You know certainly that top's going to pop open and that clown's going to pop out. It's the same idea. So what Isaiah is referring to is that feeling of tension.

Circumstances may seem hopeless. You may feel helpless, yet at the same time there is a guaranteed expectation of waiting on the Lord. An expectation of what? Well for the Old Testament saints there was an expectation of the person and work of Christ, right?

They knew the promises of God. They knew God was true to his word. They had seen it time and time again when he made promises and his covenants with his people. He fulfilled them time and time again over and over and he is true to his word.

And they're looking and they're saying, hey that God who covered Adam and Eve's nakedness with the skin of an animal is going to provide a sacrifice for me. He's going to cover my nakedness. That God said the seed of Eve, of man is going to crush the head of the serpent.

That promise I can hang on to. That God is going to provide. He's bringing a Messiah. And that expectation was certain. It was absolute in every way in their minds because it is a faith. It's an assurance of things hoped for.

It's that kavah. I spoke about Advent earlier in the service and how it's a celebration of two things, that arrival and the coming. And those Old Testament saints awaited with great expectation that arrival.

The one that would redeem his people and in the meantime they endured hardship, didn't they? They endured difficulties out of that faith being the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

They hadn't seen the Messiah. They hadn't seen the work that he was going to carry out, but they believed it. They had yet to see him, but they anticipated with 100 certainty. And what happened? God was true to his word, wasn't he?

God was true to his promise as he always is. And that promise that Paul reminds the readers of there in verses 8 -12. He's reminding these readers, he's looking back at these passages, he references 2 Samuel, he references Deuteronomy, he references Psalms, he references Isaiah, all of these texts about God and these prophecies of what's to come, the Apostle Paul references right there in those few verses.

And he's pointing out this is the promise. Christ is the promise. Christ is that Messiah that God was going to provide and now we today are here celebrating that arrival. We get to celebrate. Look at verse 12 there in Romans 15.

And again Isaiah says the root of Jesse will come. Even he who arises to rule the Gentiles, in him, who's Paul speaking of there, Christ, in him will the Gentiles hope. Let me tell you something, that phrase right there should be one of the most beautiful phrases in all of scripture for us.

We were outside of God's chosen people at the time. He could have just chosen to say I'm going to just save the nation of Israel. I'm just going to save just Jewish people and leave those Gentiles to rot in their sin and their depravity.

And yet he didn't. In him will the Gentiles hope. And we know that we had that same hope that the early saints had, yet ours is slightly different. They hoped in something they had not yet seen, but now Christ has come.

We have evidence of it. We have evidence that he was true to his word. Just as the Old Testament saints had evidence that God was always true to his promises time and time again, we have even further evidence because we've seen through the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah.

Think about it for a second. Every person is without excuse on this earth because they can see the Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled over hundreds of years. Something that a man or a group of men could not have just orchestrated and manipulated.

But over hundreds of years, prophecy after prophecy after prophecy brought through different people in different circumstances, but from the same God, all pointing to the person and work of Christ that was fulfilled and every one of those prophecies fulfilled.

That's just outward evidence for us to be able to look at and say man, God was true to his promise. We can see it. It's overwhelming. We can see the evidence through the eyewitness account of his life.

Even the most adamant atheist knows that Jesus lived and that he said the things that he said. We know this. There's evidence for it. We have through the overwhelming evidence of his death. We have it through such a great cloud of witnesses as evidenced in his resurrection.

We have evidence of God's promises being true. Plus, we on this side, we have the evidence of being sealed by the Holy Spirit that is within us. We have this great proof and evidence within us of God's promises.

You see, there is no mistaking he was true to his word. The Apostle Paul wraps up this thought with a benediction of sorts there in verse 13. I think that gives us a good picture of hope. I want us to identify three things about hope in this verse.

Hope Is Only Possible Through God

Three things. The first one I want us to see is hope is only possible through God. That's a given, right? Look at the very first part of verse 13. It says, May the God of hope. May the God of hope. We so often try and find hope elsewhere, don't we?

We look and we see the psalmist in chapter 33. He says, Let your steadfast love, O Lord, be upon us, even as we hope in you. The psalmist says in chapter 71, For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O Lord, from my youth.

You are the hope. In Lamentations 3, we see the Lord is my portion, says my soul. Therefore, I will hope in him. You see, apart from God, we are hopeless. We can't find hope in things. We can't find hope in wealth and identity.

You can't find hope in your spouse. You can't find hope in your children. You can't find hope in yoga. You can't find hope in meditation. You can't find hope in medication. You can't find hope anywhere except for through God and ultimately through Christ.

We are utterly and completely helpless. We need help to find hope. Just as that psalm we read this morning, Psalm 121, he says, I lift up my eyes to the hills. What's he talking about? Is he talking about the ridge?

We're looking up to the ridge? No. No, he's talking about the holy hill, the hill of God, right? I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord. And why does our help come from the Lord?

Why does help only come through God? Because he says, who made heaven and earth? He's the creator of all things. He's the sustainer of all things. He is the only source of hope. You see, the Bible is perfect.

And since he is who he is, the only one, then he is the only source of hope. Not only that, but it is his nature to bring about hope. We don't serve a creator God that just creates a universe and then says, oh, you're going to rebel?

I'm going to leave you to yourself. No, we serve a God of hope. We serve a God of hope that has provided hope for us. If it wasn't, he wouldn't have killed his own son to bring it about. Think about that for a second.

Killed his own son in order to bring hope. That's a God of hope. So if you're seeking help and hope from any other source, you will be sorely disappointed. And what flows out of a hopeful, secure spirit?

When you do find hope in God, when you put your hope in God, what do you find at the other side of that hope? You find joy and peace, don't you? We're going to talk about peace next week. That's what we find when we come there.

Joy and Peace Through Jesus Christ

So that leads us to our second thing I want us to see in this text. Joy and peace are only possible through Jesus. Look at the passage again there in Romans 15, 13. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing.

The Apostle Paul wants these saints to experience the deep abiding joy and peace that he himself has. The peace and joy that the Apostle Paul has himself. And just as I mentioned a moment ago about the Old Testament saints, this is not a joy based on circumstances.

The Apostle Paul suffered greatly as he writes the epistle of joy, the book of Philippians. He's writing with one hand because his other hand is chained to a Roman guard while he's wrongly imprisoned.

And he's writing, have joy in all things, right? In all circumstances, no matter what. I've lost all my freedoms and everything I have, but I am joyful. Well, why? How can he have that joy? Because of faith and assurance of things hoped for.

So what is this joy and peace? It's an inexpressible joy, a peace that surpasses all understanding. How can we have joy in all circumstances? Flip over to Galatians with me. I want you to see chapter 2, verse 20.

Galatians chapter 2, verse 20. The Apostle Paul writes this letter to the church in Galatia. This is a troubled church, but he still loves them as brothers and sisters there, the saints that are there.

In Galatians chapter 2, verse 20, he says, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is how we have joy and peace in all circumstances. Because our joy and our peace are not dependent on how things are going for me, how comfortable my life is. Me, me, me. Because our life belongs to him.

The one who gave his life for us so that we could have hope because he is our living hope. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives through me. This is Christ's life now. He bought it. He gave us a new life.

He made us a new creation. He purchased it. It belongs to him. And now everything that I do, everything that I think, everything that happens to me, everything that goes on, every circumstance in my life, every difficulty, every celebration, everything in between is his.

And when you can see life through that lens, you begin to go, I can't have joy in all circumstances because it is his life. And I just get to share in it for eternity. That is a beautiful thing that we get to share in that because of our living hope.

And what does that mean, our living hope? What is that? What is that? The living hope. We've heard it. We've sang the song before. It's a great truth. Well, this truth is that God became flesh and dwelt among us, right?

God became flesh and dwelt among us. We lose that in the Christmas season. We get caught up in the nativity and we have the little nativity sets and we see little baby Jesus there in the manger and Mary and Joseph taking care of him.

That is God himself that condescended from his rightful throne and set aside his own prerogatives, his own glory so that he could become like the creature that he created in obscurity for that matter.

That he became flesh. And what did he do? He lived a life that fulfilled his law perfectly. And I say that intentionally. His law, right? He created the law. The triune God, that is his law and he comes and he fulfills it perfectly.

Something that you and I could never do. And why could we never do it? Because all man is a slave to sin. We're born in sin. As David says, in sin did my mother conceive me. The moment I was conceived in my mother's womb, my soul entered that womb and my body wasn't even yet formed and I was already an enemy of God.

And I hated God. I was in sin. We are not all children of God, but by default at conception everyone is at odds with God and his law and so all of humanity deserves what? What does all of humanity deserve?

Death. Not only death, not just ceasing to exist as we talked about Wednesday night, but eternal punishment. Christ died that death, didn't he? He took the punishment. He paid the price for all of his elect upon that cross.

And not one drop of his blood will go wasted. There is not a soul on earth that he shed his blood for that will say, nah, I'm going to reject you. Now he finds all of them. He came and he won. He will find all of his sheep.

They hear his voice and they come to him and he will find every single one of them and he says he won't lose a single one, right? So he paid the penalty for us on the cross and then he did something that only he could do.

He took that punishment that would take us eternity to fulfill and never scratch the surface and he fulfilled it in a finite amount of time. A thing that only God himself could do. Only a perfect sacrifice could do.

He defeated death and when we look around here, how many of you have lost loved ones? Death is the enemy. It's not fun. It's not good. It's not natural. And then they tell you, oh, it's the circle of life.

It's just normal because they have no excuse for it. They can't make anything up for it. No, it's not natural. It's not normal. Death is wrong. Death is bad. Death is the enemy. Death is not what God had created.

Sin created death. And that's why Jesus defeated death and so now that's why the psalmist says, I'm scaring the baby here. I'm getting a little too loud. I'm sorry. I'm getting excited about this and we should, right?

But that's why now that we walk in the valley of the shadow of death. It's a beautiful truth. Rising there on the third day and is now seated at the right hand of the father and is eating for his sheep and that, my friends, is a living hope.

And we can only find hope through that. Now if you find yourself mentally checking out as I speak of this great hope, maybe because you've heard it so often, you already know it all. Pastor, I've heard that.

Come on, let's get to the meat of the word. I've heard the basics. I know that truth and I would caution you. You may not understand this great hope as much as you think you do because this is the very foundation of our great hope that he became flesh and dwelt among us.

Don't lose sight of that this month especially. If you're numb to that and you just don't understand it or either you are in sin and indifferent in the moment or you have never truly experienced its life changing hope.

If that's the case, please come speak to me as we go to the Lord's table here in a moment. I'd love to tell you about that hope a little more. If so, if this doesn't make sense or you're indifferent to it, this third point will make no sense to you.

Experiential Hope Through the Holy Spirit

This third and final point that I want us to see in this text is experiential hope is only possible through the Holy Spirit. You see the triune God at work here? Look at the last part of verse 13 there.

So that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. Let's be honest, we can know intellectually that we have a great hope, can't we? We come in here and we go, yeah, everything you said up to that point, pastor, I affirm that.

Yeah, we already knew all that. We knew that God is hope and that we can only find hope through God and that we only receive it through Jesus. Yeah, we get that. But I sometimes don't feel hopeful. As a matter of fact, sometimes I feel quite hopeless.

You ever experienced that? God knows our frailty and our weakness, which is precisely why he sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. God doesn't want us to just affirm intellectual truths. That does no good.

You can come here on Wednesday nights. You can be a part of individual Bible studies here. You can know all the systematic theology. You can learn Greek and Hebrew. You can do all the things and that's not going to give you any hope.

He wants us to worship him and we can only worship him in spirit and truth. This is why we must be in God's word. We must be in God's word, not just an academic approach, but dwelling with him, looking to him, wanting to hear from him.

We must be diligent in prayers. We've been speaking about prayer and last week we spent so much time in it. We should continue in that. In our own prayer lives, communing back and forth in a relationship with God, we must gather with the saints.

We must avoid sin. We must be still and know that he is God so that we can be in tune with the prompting, the working, the illuminating power and work of the Holy Spirit that is within us. So that we may abound in hope.

Paul said to the church in Ephesus, he says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. He wrote to the Thessalonians, he says, do not quench the spirit.

Some of us in here do not participate in the common means of grace as we ought. We don't read our scripture the way we should. We don't pray as we ought. We make a habit of neglecting the gathering of the saints.

We don't fellowship as we ought. We invite sin into our hearts and minds. We're just simply playing with fire, aren't we? In doing so, we quench the Holy Spirit within us. We grieve him. And then we wonder why we feel hopeless.

I fall prey to this constantly. Don't you? I fall into these cycles and then I feel hopeless. I feel helpless. I don't sense that abounding hope. I know it intellectually. I can say it all day long and say, God, you're a God of hope.

And I believe I'm in Christ. I know I have hope. I know I have eternal hope, but I don't experience it. It's not abounding in me because I'm not doing what God has called me to do. All the while, God wants us to abound in hope and we experience it through communion with the Holy Spirit.

Not grieving. Not bringing sin. Think about it. This is a temple. God himself is dwelling within you if you're in Christ. And then you come home with a bag full of sin, spread it out all over the table, and think he's going to be okay with you.

And oh, I'm going to abound in hope even though I've got all this sin in my life laying out inside of God's temple. Well, of course you're not. Now, I'm not preaching perfectionism here. Please. Some of you, your conscience is pretty like, man, if I ever sin, then I'm doomed and this is bad.

No, you're going to fall in sin. You're going to do it. It's the habit of your life. What is the habit of your life? Is it communing with God? Is it carrying out those common means of grace? Or is it a habit of just continuing to consume sin and grieve the Holy Spirit?

And you're like, well, I'm hopeless. I don't know why. I don't know why I don't have hope. And what is this hope? You've seen it in the three points. It's a hope in the triune God. A hope of the God who is a God of love.

God the Father. A hope that is seen through his son. God the Son. And a hope that is sealed by God the Holy Spirit. But it is also a hope of certainty in his return. The Old Testament saints, they cavile that anticipation of waiting on the arrival of the Messiah.

Knowing God is perfect and true to his word. God gave them great hope in spite of their circumstances and they trusted in those promises. They knew the character of God. That he was faithful. That he was true.

And they weren't sure how or when. They merely anticipated. They merely caviled. That cord is pulled tighter and tighter and it's gonna give. It's inevitable. It can't withstand the wait and it will give.

And I'm just waiting. Great anticipation for that. And that's how they saw it. But we look back at the arrival. We celebrate his faithfulness but we also we cavile in spite of our circumstances. We wait because he promised he would come again.

That's what Advent season is about. We get to celebrate. Hey, guess what? God was true to his promise then. What does that tell me? He's going to be true to his promise again. And we can look back at the arrival and we could celebrate the incarnation.

The hypostatic union. God. Man. Fully God. Fully man. Becoming one so that he can be the sacrifice for us. And he did it. And God promised it. And it came true. And we can look back to it and say the evidence is there.

He's sure. He's perfect. It's exactly what he said it was gonna be. And better. What makes me think it's not gonna be the same. And we wait. We hope. Right? We hope. He promised. He promised he would make all things new.

Didn't he? We sang that this morning. You feel the world is broken? We do. Do you feel the shadows deepening? We do. Spiritual warfare. Deeper and deeper in darkness. But do you know that all the dark won't stop the light from getting through?

We do. Do you wish that you could see it all made new? We do. And he promised. He said he would make it new. I don't know about you, but I long for that. I'm longing for it more and more in my life. I ponder on this throughout the weeks as I'm sitting there and I look at the brokenness and I have phone call after phone call from some of you and others around.

Like my life is broken and sin is destroying me. And I look around and I say I can't wait. I can't. I can't wait. Trying to make it all new. We've got some people in town that want to say he's already returned and this is the new heavens and new earth.

If this is the new heavens and new earth then God is a liar. Quit gathering because he failed. He failed at his promises. He promised a new heavens and new earth. He promised to redeem this wretched flesh.

He promised that sin would be no more. Sin would be no more. Think about that for a second. I mentioned a moment ago the shadow of death. It's just a shadow of it. It's lost its teeth. It's a lion without claws and teeth.

It has no power to do anything or any harm to us that are in Christ Jesus. But it's still present and there is coming a day when sin will be cast out completely. And we will get to stand in glorified bodies, in perfection, in perfect communion with our creator, the triune God.

And we can commune with Christ our Savior. We can have perfect communion with the Holy Spirit and we can stand in the very presence of the Father. Sinless. That is hope. This is a great hope. So we wait with great expectation knowing that he will keep his word.

That's what we hope in. That's why we light this candle this morning as a representation. Hey world, you don't have any hope. We've got hope. Oh, we've got great hope. Faith, the assurance of things hoped for, right?

That kavah, it's a certainty. It's not wishful thinking. It's absolute because our God is absolute. And as we wait on that return, let's prepare to go to the table. I want to read what Paul said about the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians chapter 11.

He said, For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread. And when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, This is my body, which is for you.