Embark on a festive journey with us as we explore the profound concept of hope in the second episode of our Advent series. We start with the poignant verses from John, Chapter 1. This week, we traverse from the book of Genesis to the tale of Abraham, witnessing the spiritual darkness that descended upon God's creation due to sin and the beacon of hope that shone in the form of God's redemptive plan.
Engage in this enlightening conversation as we tackle the arrival of hope with Jesus's birth and its fulfillment of the promises made to Israel. We discuss the inclusive nature of hope, offered to all, but embraced by only a few. Discover the transformative power of accepting Jesus and the renewed hope of becoming children of God. Especially during this holiday season, we remind you of the immense hope we have in Jesus. Tune in and journey with us through this heartening discussion.
Hello, welcome back. This is episode two of the Advent series that is part of Real Life Community Church's Real Friends podcast.
Speaker 2:
We are so excited to bring you another devotion to help you stay focused on Jesus throughout the holiday season. And what is our theme this week? The theme of the first week of Advent is hope. Our text for today is John, chapter one. And why don't you read Matthew, verses one through four and then nine through 14.
Speaker 1:
All right, starting in the beginning of John. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him and without him was not anything made. That was made in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And then, moving to chapter or, excuse me, verse nine, the true light which gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. Yet the world did not know him. He came to his own and his own people did not receive him. But to all who did receive him, who believed his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of the man, but of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Speaker 2:
To start this devotional, why don't we go back to the very beginning of the Bible, to the book of Genesis? And we know the story well, the creation story. God made the world good or bad, oh, very good. One of the most beautiful things about God's creation is that he dwelt with man. He dwelt with Adam and Eve, and that was his intention. When Adam and Eve sin though that's page you know, page one he creates the world.
Speaker 2:
Page three Adam and Eve sin, and the world, because of their sin, became very corrupted, the world itself. And then, as we know, adam and Eve became in mankind, became separated from God, and so, as a result of sin, god's creation was filled with what we might call spiritual darkness and the world seemed to be without hope. But was God content with leaving the world in this state? Had other plans all along, that's right. So he put into action, by grace, his redemptive plan to renew creation itself and to obviously redeem fallen man. And so he made a covenant, as you know, with Abraham, who became Abraham.
Speaker 2:
Yep chose the people, and through that people, he said, all the world or all the nations, all the people would be Blessed. Well, what does that mean? Well, as we read the Bible, we learned that that blessing would come through Messiah, a king, a deliverer, someone who would come and, let's say, dispel the darkness and redeem God's good creation. And so this gave Israel, who became God's people, great hope that they were promised this Messiah. But you know, matthew, for years, for centuries, they waited on this promise of the Messiah.
Speaker 1:
So starting with the idea of the arrival, or advent of hope. We start, you know, again with John 1, that where we're told about the arrival of hope, jesus's birth, of course, and the, the promises that were made to Israel, despite how long that they took by, by how we would measure, you know became a reality. And then, of course, the first nine this is my favorite part, the true light that gives hope to everyone. You know, not just some people, not based on what you've done. You know this is, you know, every, a lot of folks would say we're not a very, you know we don't give hope to everyone, that we're very Exclusive, but it's the most inclusive hope you could possibly imagine. Anyone can have it yet.
Speaker 2:
But interestingly it goes on to say that it's not everyone who receives the hope it's offered everyone I could.
Speaker 2:
Yes, and it says that you know, it's only those who received Jesus. Many rejected him, but only those who received him were given this ability to become children of God. When you're brought in the God's family through Jesus and your sin is covered, it's an amazing thing. We now have great hope in Jesus. Now here's what's interesting, matthew. We talk about Jesus in his first coming. It was the arrival of hope and he broke into the darkness of this world. But even as Christians, we we have to live amongst a lot of still really dark times. I mean, the world is pretty dark still up.
Speaker 1:
Sure, yeah, we're, we've got to be in this. You know Jesus came once. You know. So I always forget the phrase it's come in, that yeah already, but not already, but not yet. Some day of that, some day I will remember that. So you know, the the light is there and then, when Jesus comes again, just all of the darkness is going to be completely extinguished.
Speaker 2:
That's right. But even now, as we're walking in, you know, through the darkness, what we see is this that you know what, when we walk with Christ, we have light in the darkness.
Speaker 1:
Yeah just like the, the Jews in the Exodus stories, what it reminds me of yeah, you know it was dark, it was nighttime, you know the enemy forces were around them, but they had, you know that, that light of true hope, even though Jesus is going to come again a second time, and, you know, in a very different way they still they had that.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and we'll close with this. Think about, you know, we're in a very, very, very dark room. We're well, we're not right now, but just Just go with me. So for the sake of illustration, let's say that we're in a very dark room. If you just have one small match and you like that match, what happens?
Speaker 2:
the whole room is, you know, is lit up to at least some degree it is, and there might be pockets of darkness, but in the darkness we can see where we're going. And it's an amazing thing when we walk with Jesus, when we receive Jesus, when we, you know, when we submit to him coming to his kingdom, even in the midst of a dark world, we get to have light and, yes, a clarity of purpose and a sure hope.
Speaker 2:
That's right, and so there it is, day one of the theme of hope, and we'll be back tomorrow to talk about hope a little bit more. We hope you.