Gospel Hope in Christ Alone | John 14:1-9

Ed: Good morning. Today's passage is John 14:1-9.

"'Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.' Thomas said to him, 'Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?'

Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.' Philip said to him, 'Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.' Jesus said to him, 'Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.'" This is God's Word.

Chris Sherrod: Good morning, Watermark. Merry Christmas. My name is Chris Sherrod. If we haven't met, I'm the director of family ministry here. I asked Ed to read this passage this morning, first because he has a cool voice, but also because during Christmastime we end up reading a lot of passages we're used to that are familiar to us, and I wanted that to stand out a little bit.

We've been going through our series A Gospel-Saturated Church, and what I want to show today is how that passage ties into not just the gospel but Jesus' purpose in coming and also how that gives us hope. So, that's what we're going to be reading this morning.

If I could ask you to do what we do every week, I ask you to pray right now. Pray for yourself. Take a moment to ask God to open the eyes of your heart and show you wonderful things from his Word. Now pray for those around you that they would also hear clearly from God today and he would open their hearts as well. Then I ask you to pray for me, too. I'm actually getting over a little bit of a sickness. Pray that I would have strength and energy and rely on the Lord.

Father, in all this we thank you that we have hope because of Jesus. In so many of the things we just sang… There was a reason for you coming to earth. It wasn't just so you could relate to us, but, Lord, that you would rescue us. I pray that we'd be more in love with you, more in awe of who you are today because of that. It's in your name we pray, amen.

Years ago, when my kids were little, Katie and I started a family tradition on Christmas morning. Some of you might do this. It's kind of a wise men hunt for baby Jesus. We started doing clues around the house when the kids were little. They were really simple. As they got older and our family grew, we had to modify what they were for ages and things like that.

Eventually, this grew into (this was when we lived in Tyler, Texas) us doing a scavenger hunt all over the city. It turned into going into stores and going out to the middle of a lake to get a clue. They had to go buy a record that already had a clue in it. I involved a homeless man one time. They had to pace out a certain number of steps and then dig to find the next thing.

My favorite one was… I had a friend who was a police officer, and I had him pull them over one time and give them the next clue. So they never knew what was going to happen, but it was a great tradition. It was really fun. Along the way, a couple of times I had it where they were gathering numbers that were eventually going to lead up to a phone number they had to call or they were gathering physical puzzle pieces they were going to eventually put together, and when you put it all together, it spelled out a different bigger clue.

The reason I share that with you is I pray that every Christmas, but really all the time, we are gathering more and more clues, more and more puzzle pieces of who Jesus really is, that we see him every year as more precious and the gospel as more amazing. So, we're going to jump into John 14. Since the very beginning of this gospel, John has made it clear who Jesus is. He starts out calling him the incarnate Word, and then, in just the first chapter alone, he calls him the Lamb of God, the Son of God, the Messiah, the King of Israel, and the Son of Man.

In the book of John, he records Jesus' famous "I Am," where he's claiming to be the same God who appeared to Moses. That's in John 8:58. Then he records these seven "I am" statements where Jesus takes the covenant name of God and applies it to himself and adds something on that explains more of his character or his mission. He calls himself the Bread of Life; the Light of the World; the Door; the Good Shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the way, the truth, and the life, as we just read; and then in chapter 15 he says, "I'm the true Vine."

That has been John's purpose all along, so you can see, "Okay, who is this we have been talking about?" We jump in right here in chapter 14, and it might seem weird that he starts off with, "Let not your hearts be troubled." That word troubled means to agitate, to cause inward commotion, to take away calmness of mind, to make restless, to stir up, to render anxious or distressed. Why did Jesus have to say that? It's because, in chapter 13, he just dropped a bomb on their messianic expectations.

He does something weird. First of all, he washes their feet, which they never thought… "My rabbi washing my feet? What?" Then he tells them three events that are going to happen that just devastates them. He says, "One of you is going to betray me; I'm going to go away, and you can't follow me; and Peter (who seemed to be the strongest one among the group) is going to even deny he knows me." So their heads are spinning, and maybe their hope is fading, so he has to share this with them.

So many times in Scripture we see Jesus saying, "Where is your faith?" He's not saying, "You didn't have any faith." He's saying, "What did you put your faith in? Was it in what you could see, what you're feeling, your circumstances, people around you, what your expectations were about the future?" That's a big part of hope. As his disciples are feeling right now, that has all been pulled out from under them, seemingly.

So, what does Jesus do? He points them to the only thing that can actually give them hope, that can hold up their hope. You can lose a lot of things in life, but if you lose hope, that really can be devastating, because it has to do with how you view the future. A lot of things cause hopelessness. I was reading a study from 2022, and it said over 44 percent of high school students self-reported they have persistent feelings of hopelessness. That's not good.

Maybe you never feel like you have enough money or you can't have kids or you're paralyzed by fear. You can't find a job. There's marital conflict that doesn't seem to end. You have chronic stress or sickness. You feel alone. Kids are misbehaving. It all has to do with the future. It doesn't look like there is hope. Maybe it's spiritual hopelessness. You're feeling some disconnect with God, so you try to pray more. You try to do better things and avoid bad things. Ephesians 2:12 actually describes people who are separated from Christ as people who have no hope in the world.

So, what can give us stability? What can hold up your hope? Is it how you feel? Is it your health? Is it your mood? Is it your circumstances? Is it social media, religious institutions, or politicians? For a lot of people, the hopes and fears of all the years were met on election night. That's what all their hope was in. How things turned out was going to be whether or not their life was going to make it.

Let's look at what Jesus does. He points them back to the only unchanging source of hope. In verse 1, he says, "Believe in God; believe also in me." The word believe, just so you know, is probably the most important word in the whole book of John. He uses it over 90 times…where you're putting your faith. So, Jesus comforts them about these future events by first saying, "Hey, listen. I have something you can anchor your hope in."

Let me clarify biblical hope. I want to make sure you understand this. Biblical hope is not "Gee, I hope it doesn't rain today" or "I hope my team wins." The way I think about it related to Christmas is, a lot of times, Christmas morning, as a kid, you hoped what you asked for was going to be under the tree, was in that wrapping paper.

For me, as a kid in the 70s, my hope was an Evel Knievel stunt cycle with the wind-and-go action launcher. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yeah. Apparently, Santa thought I needed a plastic knockoff that you had to push yourself, and the guy was even attached to the cycle. You couldn't even pose him. That's okay. But that's the way a lot of people think about hope. It's like, "I asked for this. Maybe I'm going to get that."

Let me contrast that with my friend Denny. Growing up, my friend Denny knew where his parents hid his Christmas gifts. Every year, a couple of weeks into December, if we had nothing else to do, he would go, "Do you want to go see what I'm getting for Christmas?" So we'd go look at what he was getting for Christmas.

Now, here's the difference. Christmas morning, my hope and Denny's hope were very different. I'm looking at these gifts going, "Come on." Denny is looking at these things confidently. He knows exactly what he's going to get. It's not his yet, but he knows it's going to be his. Guys, that's biblical hope. It's confident expectation. That's what I want you to think of when you think of hope. It's the emotional confidence that comes from what we know is true.

In fact, 1 Peter 1:3 says it's a living hope because of the fact of Jesus' resurrection from the dead. Hope and faith are always linked together. They help define each other. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, but I like to think of hope this way. Hope is faith looking forward. I don't have it yet, but I know who made the promises, and I'm waiting. In fact, in the Old Testament, the words for hope and wait are interchangeable a lot of times.

So, I don't have it yet, but I'm waiting. I'm looking forward. It's confidently anticipating something about the future because you trust the character and promises of God. In Hebrews 6, it says this hope can be a sure and steadfast anchor for your soul. That means, regardless of your circumstances, your hope never changes. It's that anchor you have.

Believing in God and his promises is what gives you that hope beyond this world. The way it works is we can trust him for what we can't see because we know what he has already provided. This is what we've seen him do. So, you put your hope in something. Psalm 42 says, "Put your hope in God." First Peter 1:13 says to set your hope fully on God's grace. You put it somewhere.

So, how do you do that? Well, you think about, you meditate on the character of God and what he has promised. In Lamentations 3, right after a whole bunch of descriptions of how bad the world is, it says, "But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end…great is your faithfulness." That's where we have hope, not in what we can see.

Then Jesus goes on in verse 2 and says, "In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also." I don't know if you know this, but Jesus is using wedding language here.

In the Jewish culture, a young man who was betrothed would go and begin to add on to his father's house another room that he and his bride were going to get to enjoy, and once it was ready, then he came back and got his bride. So, Jesus is using tender, loving, reassuring language here about what's going to happen. "I promise I'm not going to leave you forever. This is all bigger than you can understand right now. It's actually more important than you can see."

I love Thomas' response. Jesus says, "And you know the way to where I am going." Thomas is like, "Uh, we actually don't know the way. We don't know the way." We call him doubting Thomas sometimes. I just love his honesty. Can we rename him "Honest Thomas," maybe? He's just going, "I don't know. I haven't seen. Tell me." That's what happened after the resurrection.

None of the disciples believed, by the way, until Jesus appeared. Thomas just didn't happen to be there. He was just being honest. That's a great reminder for all of us that Christianity isn't a blind faith, that it offers reasons. It offers evidence, objective answers to our doubts. I love this reminder from Tim Barnett of the ministry Stand to Reason. It's one of my favorite apologetics ministries. He says, "When carefully explored, doubt builds faith. When carelessly ignored, doubt destroys faith."

Blind faith can only respond to doubt with either silence or shame. Like, "You shouldn't be asking those questions. You're being a bad Christian by doubting." It doesn't offer a safe place where you can ask good questions. God is not afraid of your questions. We actually have a ministry here called Great Questions. It meets every Monday night in a room right over here at 7:30 if you have questions. We have to remember with Christianity it's different. Blind faith is belief in spite of the evidence; Christianity is belief in light of the evidence. So, again, I love Thomas' honesty there.

Jesus responds to his question with the truth of "I am the way, and the truth, and the life." This is possibly one of the most offensive parts of Christianity in today's world, because there's a common idea that all religions are basically the same, equally valid, subjectively true. "If it works for you, if it gives you a sense of purpose or peace or morals… Are you sincere about it? I mean, surely there are other ways. Right? Aren't these all just different paths to the top of the same mountain or rivers to the same ocean? Why does Jesus have to be so exclusive?"

Well, here's the why in a nutshell, and this is going to go back to the gospel. God's holiness demands that I be perfect, that we be perfect, and I can't offer that. I can't offer perfection, but God is perfect. Anything in his presence has to be perfect. Also, God's justice demands that I be punished, which I don't want to bear. So, these are my two problems: perfection and punishment. Those are all of our problems. This, by the way, is why no other religious leader can help us. They all have the same problem, the same spiritual sickness called sin.

I don't need encouragement to just be myself or follow my heart or try harder. I need a cure. I need a rescue. For God to uphold his justice and his holiness, I have to have some kind of a substitute, and that's exactly what Christmas is all about. That's the gospel, that Jesus lives the perfect life I couldn't live (that's the perfection part), then he dies the death I should have died (that's the punishment part), and then he offers it to me as a free gift. His sinless life and his sin-bearing death both count as mine. That's what Jesus was doing coming to earth.

Second Corinthians 5:21 explains it this way: "For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." That's the great exchange that happens there. Jesus takes all of my sin. I get his righteousness. God treats me as if I lived Jesus' perfect life, and he treats Jesus as if he had lived my sinful life.

Jesus doesn't cancel God's wrath; he actually absorbs it, and he satisfies God's wrath. It's not that there's no condemnation. Jesus took the condemnation. He diverted it from me to himself, and it fully satisfied the justice God demands. Here's the way Tim Keller puts it. "The gospel is that I am so sinful that Jesus had to die for me, yet so loved and valued that Jesus was glad to die for me. This leads to deep humility and deep confidence at the same time. I can't feel superior to anyone, and yet I have nothing to prove to anyone."

We're more sinful and flawed than we ever dared imagine, but we're more loved and accepted in Christ than we ever dared hope. That's the glorious message of the gospel. So, don't be amazed when Jesus says, "The gate is narrow that leads to eternal life." Be amazed that the gate is open, first of all, and be amazed that it's more than just pardon; it's justification. We're declared righteous. And be amazed more than that. It's adoption. God invites us into his family.

J.I Packer puts it this way: "Adoption is the highest privilege that the gospel offers: higher even than justification. To be right with God the Judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is greater." That's the hope Christmas offers. It's good news of great joy. This is the way Galatians 4 describes Christmas and adoption.

It says, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" That's that intimacy…"Daddy." "So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God."

Yeah, those claims Jesus makes are exclusive (the way, the truth, and the life), but they're necessary. Let's talk about this for a second. How do these three exclusive claims counter man's way of thinking naturally and actually give us hope? First of all, Jesus as the way refutes moralism. That's the idea that your sincerity and activity get you to God. That's my simple definition. "Are you sincere? Are you doing good things? Great. That gets you to God."

But understand, Jesus is not saying, "Hey, here's a way, one of many ways," as an option. He is the way. All of the other religions say something like, "I'm going to give God a good moral record so he'll accept me." The gospel says, "Nope. God loves and accepts me in Christ. Period. I now get to obey him, not out of guilt or payback or to prove anything. I get to. I'm completely accepted because of Christ, and I get to live for him, empowered by him."

This doesn't mean we ignore sin, by the way. We take sin seriously. We fight sin, but we're now motivated by God's love for us and by our love for him. So, when we're confronted with sin, we repent. If we have criticism, we can receive it, but we're not devastated by it because we know, "My identity is not linked to my performance." Do you guys hear that? Your identity is not linked to your performance, how God sees you, how God accepts you.

Maybe you're here because you feel something is still kind of lacking in your life, and you want to maybe add on religion or add Jesus on. This is where the gospel says, "Hey, he's not an add-on. Jesus is essential. He's your only hope." This is why Acts 4:12 says, "And there is salvation in no one else…" That's an exclusive claim. That might be offensive, but you have to understand why. "…for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." No one else lived the perfect life and died the substitute death. That's why he's the only way, and that's why we preach that boldly. We want people to hear the good news.

If I'm having a Christmas party at my house and I send you an invitation and I want you there, I'm not going to be vague in my directions. Worse yet, imagine if I said, "Hey, from Watermark, get on 75 and head north or south, depending on how you feel. Drive as far as you want and get off at any exit, find a street name that looks good that you like, drive until you find a house that looks attractive, and you're at my party."

If I gave you those directions, does it sound like I want you at my party? No. If I want you at my party, I'm going to be specific. "Here's how you get there. Don't go right; go left. Don't go eight miles; go six miles." I'm going to be very specific because I want you there. In your life, have you transferred your trust from your good works, from your sincerity, from your religious activity to the work Jesus has done and completed? That's what Christmas is all about.

Tim Keller goes on and essentially says, "Whatever your problem, God solves it with his grace. God's grace abolishes guilt forever. You may be filled with regret for the past or may be living with a sense of great failure. It doesn't matter what you have done. If you were a hundred times worse than you are, your sins would be no match for his mercy."

Guys, what a relief. What a source of hope, knowing my performance has nothing to do with my acceptance. Moralism produces either fear ("Am I good enough?") or pride ("Look at what I've done") or just despair ("I can never measure up"). That's not hope. So, that's what Jesus saying he's the way does.

Jesus as the truth refutes relativism. Relativism is the idea that you define reality and morality for yourself. John uses the word truth 25 times. Jesus says, "The truth will set you free." In chapter 17, he's going to pray that God would sanctify us by the truth; his Word is truth. But listen. There are so many questions in life. "How did we get here? What's our purpose? Where are we going?" You can't just guess on those things.

Our only options are these: either God speaks or we guess. It's either revelation or speculation. That's all we have. The good news is the truth has come and our ignorance can be over on what reality is, how we live, and what our purpose is. Sincerity doesn't equal truth. You can be sincerely wrong. I actually got on the wrong airplane one time. Sincerity doesn't equal truth. How you were raised doesn't equal truth. It doesn't guarantee that you have the truth. Your feelings don't define truth. God has defined truth in his Word and through his Son.

So, when Jesus says he is the truth, it's not a truth or my truth or one of many. By his very nature he is the truth. So, we don't mean these are just subjectively true things, like, true for you, like your favorite flavor of ice cream or if it works for you. We're saying this is true for all people, for all times, and for all places. It's objective because God is outside of us, it's absolute because God doesn't change, and it's for all people because God is eternal. It's universal.

Maybe this morning some of you need to come face to face with that truth, that you don't have it all together, that you don't know all of the answers, that you do need to be rescued, because it's not loving to not tell people the truth because it might ruin their day or make them mad. Of course, how you say it is important, but it's not loving to let someone stay on the road to self-destruction. That's the glory of Christmas. The truth has come into the world. Ignorance is replaced with truth.

This is what Jesus said to Pilate in John 18. He tells us another reason for Christmas. "For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice." In the biggest, maybe even saddest irony ever, he said that to Pilate, and Pilate looked back at him and said, "What is truth?" when the truth was right there in front of him.

That's why we need God's revelation, so it's not just us guessing. If what I believe in my mind doesn't reflect God's truth, what I'm going to feel in my heart is not going to reflect reality. I need God's truth to daily correct the lies I believe. It's the straight edge against which all of my crookedness is revealed. So, my prayer is for all of us, that we make him the absolute, final, sovereign authority of our lives with his truth.

The third claim Jesus makes there, Jesus as the life, refutes existentialism. I don't want you to get freaked out by that word. Existentialism basically is the assumption that "Hey, we're all just an accident. There's no real meaning or purpose here, so you get to give yourself meaning and purpose. Whatever you come up with is going to add significance and substance to your life." That sounds appealing at first, but it's really, really sad, because I can't give myself meaning.

People try to find significance and substance inwardly, maybe in how they feel, or in relationships. They try to find it in their career or in a cause or in their sexuality. People try to find it in "Well, one day if I get married…" or "Because I'm married…" or "Because I'm a parent…" All of those things are external and temporal. They're circumstantial. They're going to change, and that is really shaky to build your life on.

So, what Jesus is saying here… It's not just that he has life or gives life but that he is life. The Greek word there is zoe. It means eternal life. Jesus uses that word over 30 times. It also means fullness of life now. Not that it's your best life now, but it just means regardless of what you're facing, you can have an abundant, overflowing joy that God promises now. It's not like, "One day when I die." No, now you get that eternal life.

It would be like me going to Disney World, going through the gate of the Magic Kingdom, finding the first park bench, sitting down, and spending the day on that park bench. Yeah, I'm in the kingdom, but I miss the point. It was supposed to start then. Right? You're in the kingdom once you trust him.

Jesus is saying, "This is the life." The author of life is offering you life. John 1 says, "In him (Jesus) was life." In John 10:10, Jesus uses that word zoe when he says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." He is in himself that life that gives joy and purpose and contentment regardless of our circumstances or our sicknesses. That hope is better than what this life can give and death can take. "No guilt in life, no fear in death." I get that already right now.

We studied Colossians earlier this year. Colossians 3 reminds us, "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Later on in chapter 14, Jesus is going to explain to the disciples more about the Holy Spirit. "Better than me just being with you is the Holy Spirit in you that's going to be empowering you and teaching you and reminding you and pointing things back to God."

Sadly, this is what people miss out on. They want the autonomy of "My way," they want the seeming authenticity of "It's my truth," and they want the affirmation of "My life. This is what I get to give significance to." But Shane Pruitt reminds us, "The goal of the gospel is not to affirm you, celebrate you, and accept you. The goal of the gospel is to rescue you, transform you, and redirect you." Let the one who designed you be the one who defines you. You don't have to come up with the significance yourself. He can give it to you.

Romans 15:13 talks about this, hope and joy and peace that are all bound up together. It says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." You can know peace without knowing what's next. Jesus promised you're going to have trouble in this world, but you can still have peace in the midst of it. You can have joy even though your circumstances might be tough. Your circumstances can only rob you of your joy if you're living to enjoy your circumstances. He offers a joy that doesn't change, and it's not based on the goodness of my day but on the goodness of my God. That's my joy.

I love Philip's response where he says, "Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us." Jesus says, "Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip?" I picture Jesus giving him this look that some of you wives give your husband when, for three weeks, you've been telling him people are coming over, and then the day of the event he goes, "Do we have anything going on tonight?" Right? Jesus is like, "Philip, I've been with you this whole time. To see me is to see the Father." Look at what he says.

"Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves."

Again, there's evidence. What he's saying to Philip is, "Philip, this is the Christmas hope." Our Christmas hope is that the infinite has become intimate, that the Father has made himself known. The infinite God of the universe is now intimate. You can have that relationship with him. Hebrews 2 explains a little bit more about Christmas and how that happened.

It says, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things…" He became a man. He became flesh and blood. "…that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." You don't have to fear death anymore. He conquered it. That was one of the purposes of Christmas.

John Piper explains the reason he became man was to die. We sang that a minute ago. "Born to give us second birth." His birth was to give us second birth. How is he going to do that? By his death for us. As man, he could do this. His aim in coming was to die; therefore, he had to be born human. Piper says, "Good Friday is the purpose of Christmas."

We don't want to ever forget the link of those two things. Why do we have Christmas in the first place? Again, not "Well, it's nice that God can kind of come and join us." No, no, no. It's to come rescue us. It's to come live that life we can't live and die the death we don't want to die. But if my biggest problem, death, is taken care of, then all other things pale in comparison.

I want to conclude with a question: Do you believe? This is what John is going to say is the purpose of his book. I think of it this way. In so many action movies, there is a character who seems like an ordinary person, and then some event happens, and all of a sudden, they have these amazing skills. Right? They can blow things up or demonstrate all of this martial arts stuff, and people are like, "What in the world? Who is this guy?"

Then they do this background check, and it turns out he has a military background. I think this is every Liam Neeson movie. Military background or CIA operative or assassin or SEAL team…whatever it was. Then, somewhere along the line, someone says, "They don't know who they're messing with" or "We messed with the wrong guy."

What John has been saying all along here is "I don't want you to mistake who we're talking about. Don't let the sleeping baby, the cute little baby in the manger, fool you. This is the God of the universe." That's why the song "Mary, Did You Know?" is so powerful. It's saying this is what it's all about, what that baby is going to do. So make no mistake. Eternity has entered history. God has become a man.

Here's what John says is the purpose of his book. In John 20, it says, "Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ…" "Why did I write this whole book? So that you can believe that he's the Christ." Listen to this. "…the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name." That's the purpose.

So, what's your application today? Are there truths about Jesus that have magnified your hope as you approach Christmas? You're gathering more clues, more puzzle pieces. Maybe you were reminded of your rescue. Author Jerry Bridges always says, "Preach the gospel to yourself every day." Don't get over your rescue.

Maybe you need to re-surrender or re-crown him as Lord of your life and your source of truth. Maybe there are things you need to repent of. You need to recommit to spending time with him. One of the ways you grow hope is through prayer, because it's offering back to God, "Hey, these are my fears. These are my doubts. These are my worries. These are my expectations. I want to keep giving them up to you, and I'm going to trust you." You bring them to him.

Then here's the important part, and this is what's related to hope. "Lord, I trust your timing because I know who you are." Maybe, for some of you, it has been, "My way, my truth, and my life," and for the first time, you need to bow your knee and surrender to the God of the universe and trust him as your Savior. Whatever it is, we're going to have time at the end of the service where you can come down and be prayed for or ask questions or talk about how you can have that relationship with Jesus.

Again, now we have hope, if we look at Jesus' words, because there's a clear way back to God the Father. Now we know what that way is. We can have pardon and adoption and fullness of joy, abundant life, peace with God, the peace of God, a living hope, the sure and steadfast anchor for our soul. All of that is what God offers in Jesus.

So, in this world where people feel aimless or unsure exactly how to get back to God, Jesus is the way; in a world where the moral landscape is always changing with no real footing for right or wrong, Jesus is the truth; and in a world where nothing ultimately satisfies…there's nothing you can hang your identity on…Jesus is the life. That's what he offers. That's my prayer for us. Will you pray with me?

Thank you, God, so much for your Word, for the reminder today of these precious promises that you are not just a way or a truth, a source of life, but you truly are the hope that goes beyond what our circumstances look like, what we feel, what we've tried on our own. God, you ultimately are the only hope we have, the only way, the only truth, and the only life.

I pray for anyone here who has not made that decision, Lord, that they would trust you and crown you as their King, that this Christmas would be different because, for the first time, they've experienced you as their Savior who was born. I pray that our love for you and the way we see you as worthy of all worship has grown today because of this. It's in your name we pray, amen.