Rejoice in Hope
Good Morning Friends,
Here is the deal…no one thinks they are the problem with the church but virtually everyone acknowledges there is a problem. Blaming others for the state of the church just robs everyone of energy. So if we are to get better as a church we must learn…we must prepare for a better way. When John the Baptist was confronted with this problem, he choose to decrease so Christ might increase…like Caleb, with a positive spirit of enthusiasm, we are to see the possibilities of the new thing God is doing. You see, complaining and blaming misses the mark. Instead if we want to enter the Promised Land we are to come out of the Wilderness to Rejoice in Hope.
Scripture: So they brought to the Israelites an unfavorable report of the land that they had spied out, saying, “The land that we have gone through as spies is a land that devours its inhabitants; and all the people that we saw in it are of great size. There we saw the Nephilim (the Anakites come from the Nephilim); and to ourselves we seemed like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”
Numbers 13:32-33 (NRSV)
The Word was first, the Word present to God, God present to the Word. The Word was God, in readiness for God from day one. Everything was created through him; nothing—not one thing!—came into being without him. What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by. The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn’t put it out. There once was a man, his name John, sent by God to point out the way to the Life-Light. He came to show everyone where to look, who to believe in. John was not himself the Light; he was there to show the way to the Light. The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life he brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to his own people, but they didn’t want him. But whoever did want him, who believed he was who he claimed and would do what he said, He made to be their true selves, their child-of-God selves. These are the God-begotten, not blood-begotten, not flesh-begotten, and not sex-begotten. The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood. We saw the glory with our own eyes, the one-of-a-kind glory, like Father, like Son, Generous inside and out, true from start to finish. John pointed him out and called, “This is the One! The One I told you was coming after me but in fact was ahead of me. He has always been ahead of me, has always had the first word.” We all live off his generous bounty, gift after gift after gift. We got the basics from Moses, and then this exuberant giving and receiving, this endless knowing and understanding— all this came through Jesus, the Messiah. No one has ever seen God, not so much as a glimpse. This one-of-a-kind God-Expression, who exists at the very heart of the Father, has made him plain as day. When Jews from Jerusalem sent a group of priests and officials to ask John who he was, he was completely honest. He didn’t evade the question. He told the plain truth: “I am not the Messiah.” They pressed him, “Who, then? Elijah?” “I am not.” “The Prophet?” “No.” Exasperated, they said, “Who, then? We need an answer for those who sent us. Tell us something—anything!—about yourself.” “I’m thunder in the desert: ‘Make the road straight for God!’ I’m doing what the prophet Isaiah preached.” Those sent to question him were from the Pharisee party. Now they had a question of their own: “If you’re neither the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet, why do you baptize?” John answered, “I only baptize using water. A person you don’t recognize has taken his stand in your midst. He comes after me, but he is not in second place to me. I’m not even worthy to hold his coat for him.”
John 1:2-27 (The Message)Top of FormBottom of Form
12Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer.
Romans 12:12 (NRSV)
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.
John 3:16 (NRSV)
Message: Yesterday, the third Sunday in Advent, we celebrated our confident anticipation of God’s inheritance known as joy. To help demonstrate it our family gave a dramatic reenactment part of the story of John the Baptist. It started with the lighting of the rose colored Advent candle to signify the joy of God coming into us with truth and light. I am not going to describe it for you here but its point was to help others to discover that our work in worship and in life is to prepare the way for Jesus to come into our hearts. That friends is demonstrated when we sing from the heart or commit a character to our spirit to share with others. Yesterday there were countless sermons on John the Baptist and maybe a few dramatic reenactments. And now to make them more relevant I would consider them against that back drop of perhaps the greatest verse in the Bible. It has only 27 words but they are arranged in a powerful way. It is the good news, the Alpha and Omega. Focus for a moment on this scripture and you will find that John 3:16 carries in it a present that is the meaning of Christmas Love…that Christ was Love and still is… the greatest love that ever existed… and our job is to tell others of the greatest gift ever given. This friends is joy. This friends is the great hope. This friends is the greatest faith ever shown. It proclaims the greatest life we can live. With anticipation unwrap it. With joy unpack it. It is the hope of love in which we rejoice.
Pray that we be washed clean. Pray that we accept the greatest opportunity in the world. Pray that we believe, ask for and receive this gift of love. Pray that we embrace this time of remembering, loving, giving and forgiving so we may rejoice in the new birth. Pray we be doers of the word. Pray we realize the church has always had problems. Pray we realize that hope is the key to joy. Pray we rejoice in the Lord always.
Blessings,
John Lawson
Daily Devotionals 