Our Eagerly Awaited Hope

(Note for readers: There is a short Children’s Message at the beginning, followed by the sermon for an adult audience)

CHILDREN’S MESSAGE

Do you know what month it is right now? Yes, it’s December! What special holiday do Christians all over the world celebrate in December? Christmas! Do you know why we celebrate Christmas? Yes, we’re celebrating the birth of Jesus!

December is a special time when we prepare ourselves for Christmas. One of the things we do to prepare is decorate! Do you know what this is? [point to bare Christmas tree]… Yes, it’s a Christmas tree! Right now, there’s nothing on it, but later today we will all get to decorate our Christmas tree together.

First, let’s just look at the tree... Our tree is not a real tree, it’s just made of plastic and metal… But it looks like a real tree… a special kind of tree called an “evergreen” tree… The word “evergreen” is 2 words that have been put together to make 1 word… the word “ever” or “always”, and the word for the color “green”… So evergreen trees are always green all year long… Other kinds of trees will lose their leaves in the Fall and Winter… but evergreen trees keep their small pointy green leaves all year.

We use evergreen trees at Christmas to remind us that Jesus came to bring us eternal life… Because of Jesus, we can live forever… If you believe in Jesus, and trust Him to save you from your sins, then you are like the evergreen tree… You get to live forever in heaven with Jesus.

But everyone who does not follow Jesus are like the other kinds of trees that lose their leaves in winter… They will face death and be separated from God forever. God doesn’t want any of us to be separated from Him… God loves us so much that He sent Jesus… and this is why we celebrate Christmas… Because God gave us the best gift we could ever hope for. So we have put this evergreen tree in the front of the sanctuary to remind us that Jesus came to bring us eternal life.

Let’s PRAY…

[Dismiss children… ADULT MESSAGE begins here]

Please open your Bibles to Romans 8:18-25… As we spend the next few weeks looking forward to Christmas… we will prepare our hearts and minds to focus on the true purpose of our celebration… Jesus! This morning, God has a message of HOPE for us!

Let’s read our text from Romans 8:18-25…

18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

These are not Bible verses we would normally use as we prepare for Christmas… but I think God has some important truth in here for us today… an important message of HOPE...

In the beginning, there was perfect fellowship with God… Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God… there was no death or suffering… all of creation was perfect! But Adam and Eve chose to disobey God… sin came into the world… and with sin came God’s curse upon the land and upon mankind… Genesis 3:17-19…

17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

With that in mind, look again at Romans 8:20-22…