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Good morning everybody. How y'all doing? Well, if y'all don't know me, I'm Alex. I'm not normally the guy that's that's preaching up here on Sunday morning. I'm usually the guy that's that's leading the music. So um if it's really bad or something, just know that if you're a visitor, normally Nick or Harley's preaching, and Nick's really good, and Harley sounds really cool when he talks because he's Australian. So normally it's like way better. Um but I'm really sincerely grateful for the opportunity I get um to teach maybe once or twice a year. Um and it's just wonderful to get to share specifically with you guys because y'all aren't uh just a faceless uh group of people. Y'all are my family here at Point. And so thanks for giving me the opportunity to teach you guys from God's Word this morning. And God's Word is actually where we're gonna start. Um, we're gonna begin by reading this passage in Romans 5 that we've been focusing on for the last two weeks because I want to start with the Word of God, because really my commentary or my thoughts at the end of the day aren't gonna be where the power is. The power is in God's word and God's spirit to change and mold and convict us. So if you've got your Bibles, we're gonna turn to Romans chapter 5. We're gonna read the first five verses. If you don't have a Bible, there's one in front of you, or you can just look back here at the screen. Um this is God's word. It says, Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions, because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. This hope will not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has given to us. Let me pray for us. Father God, thank you so much for your word. And I pray, Lord, that as we study it and as I speak, God, that your spirit would move through this place, move through this room, God, that through proclaiming your word, God, that we would be changed and God that we would leave with hope that will not disappoint us, the hope that we have in Jesus. We ask that in Christ's name. Amen. Okay, so just to start, I think everybody has experienced something like this. You know, when somebody comes up to you and they say, Okay, here's the deal. I've got good news and I've got bad news. What do you want to hear first? Yeah, the bad news, right? Okay, good. If you're gonna say you want to hear the good news first, you're probably one of those people that puts the toilet paper on, like going back when everyone knows it's supposed to go in front, okay? People that want to hear the good news first, I don't get it. Because you want to hear the bad news first so the good news afterwards can cheer you up from whatever the bad news was, right? You need you need to come back up after whatever was a bummer. And so that's what I'm gonna do this morning. We're gonna start, I'm gonna share the bad news with you, okay? But then afterwards we're gonna talk about the good news. Does that sound good? Okay. The bad news is the world is broken. Okay, the world is broken. It is terminally sick. It's terminal, and the world will not be getting any better. Okay? Merry Christmas, that's your Merry Christmas message. Hope that was encouraging, child, this morning. Let's know. Okay, but seriously, okay, this is true, and it's not something that we just experience in our life. Uh, the truth that the world is broken, that there's something inherently wrong with creation is something that the Bible speaks to time and time again. Even in this same book, uh in Romans chapter 8, Paul writes, and he says, the world is groaning, it's sick, it's groaning just like a woman that's having labor pains, okay? Has anyone had a baby in this room or has like watched your wife have a baby? Respect, okay. I got to watch my wife uh have our daughter. It looks like it really hurts, okay? It looks really bad. And Paul uses that illustration to say that's what the world and creation are going through. It's it's groaning. There's something really, really wrong with the world that we live in, okay? And I don't think that anyone in this room or anyone that we know, even that's not a believer in Jesus, would really disagree with the statement that the world is broken. I mean, we see it all around us in really big, obvious ways. You've got war, um, racism, slavery, greed, political division, sickness, sexual sin, okay? These are things that are really obvious and easy to see. And they're not, and they're not only things that we see now, they've existed since the beginning of human history, and they've persisted all the way up to our time, okay? These have been a part of what it means to be a human for thousands of years. Science, technology, philosophy, political diplomacy, and medicine, okay, none of those things have fixed the problem. Okay? They have not offered an ultimate solution for these big problems. And the reason they haven't been able to fix it is because the underlying problem is that in each and every human heart exists sin, okay? A deep brokenness. And it's a problem that we can't just vote away. We can't take a vote and say no more sin, okay? They have not figured out how to make a sin cure through medicine. It doesn't exist, okay? And that's why these problems have continued to persist. But often I think that it would be easy for me to just leave the problem there, that the world has these big systemic problems that are unfixable. But the truth is there's this hidden, smaller, and more personal brokenness that gets overlooked. Because it's not just the world around us that's broken, it's actually us. That we're actually broken. The world didn't become broken just in a vacuum, okay? We have done this to creation. I'll put it, I'll put it this way. I think this is a really good illustration for anybody in this room. Does anybody have kids? Who has kids? Lots, okay. Lots of families in our church. I love it. If you've ever seen a toddler, okay, I've got one. You know that the world, you know, they didn't come out of the womb perfect, and then mom and dad just messed up or something, although we do. Um, the world didn't uh ruin your kid, okay? Our toddlers come out of the womb sinful, okay? They don't learn from the world around them how to disobey and how to lie and how to push boundaries, okay? They didn't learn it from us. They come out sinful. We are born broken, okay? And so I think it's it's really important that we understand that the sinful world doesn't ruin us and make us all broken. That we're sinful and broken, and as we live, we break the world around us, okay? I think that's, you know, it's a hard truth, but it's a really important one. And I think that, you know, around Christmas time, there's a specific type of brokenness in us that I think is particularly evident, surprisingly enough. It's, you know, not the fault of Christmas. I love Christmas, okay? It's my favorite time of the year. It's the most wonderful time of the year. You may have heard before. I love it, okay? I'm totally into Christmas. Christmas in of itself is a wonderful thing. And actually, I found out this week while I was um doing work on this sermon that Christmas has been celebrated for about 1,600 years. I had no idea. It started a really long time ago. So as we celebrate the birth of Jesus, we actually join Christians from over 1,500 years ago in celebrating the birth of Christ at this time of year. It's it's really, really a beautiful time. Um, but for many of us, the way that we do it here in the United States, kind of like Landon was mentioning, we have all these expectations built up around the Christmas holiday, and it really can shine a spotlight on some specific parts of our heart uh that are broken or painful or disappointing. Let me give you some examples. So, you know, you are having family into town, Christmas season, or you're going to visit family, and you're expecting this warm, perfect, you know, Norman Rockwell painting, Christmas experience. You're all gathered around the table and nobody's fighting, and there's no drama, okay? Then that didn't happen, okay? Your uncle said something political and everybody started fighting, or somebody had too much wine, and the night just kind of got away from you, okay? You're expecting this perfect, happy family, and it didn't happen, and you're disappointed. Or maybe there's someone that you love and hold dear. This is their first Christmas that they're not around. Okay, maybe someone's passed away this year, and there's this really important part of Christmas that's not there anymore. Or maybe that someone in the family uh is on the outs with you, and they didn't come visit, and you're disappointed. Maybe your neighbor is having Christmas in the Bahamas, and you are stru like we're struggling to give our kids gifts, okay? And we're having this comparison with other people that seem to have it all together, and it just highlights our own struggles. Maybe on January 1st, you had a resolution that this particular sin in your life, you were going to conquer it, it was going to be done by December 31st of this year, and it's the 18th, and nothing is different in your life, okay? Nothing's changed. Surely at least one of these things I think we can all relate with. Um personally around Christmas time. The one thing I was thinking about was my grandfather. Uh, my papa is such a huge part of Christmas for me. Um, but this is a Christmas he's not going to be around. He passed away. And so, you know, some of my favorite memories of Christmas are playing 42 uh with my dad and my and my granddad and our family, and and being at their house in San Angelo, Texas, eating Pizza Hut pizza and just uh watching bad game shows at their house. Um my papa is like a huge part of what Christmas means to me. So for me, you know, as wonderful as the Christmas season is, it's it's a reminder of part of my life that was good that is lost. You know, it it brings up a sense of sadness and loss, and I'm certain almost everyone in this room knows what that feels like. And that becomes particularly strong here at the holidays. I think it's a common feeling. Not common in that, you know, it's not important or it's not real, it's common in that all of us know this kind of pain. There's a great sadness that comes during this season for a lot of us, and it's the tension between our expectations and our wishes for our life and what this world would be and the reality of what our life actually is. It's the expectation of unrealized change, it's a sense that the world isn't like what we want it to be. So brokenness is all around us, and that can lead us to this deep, profound grief. But Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, we do not grieve as those without hope. And that is the good news we were talking about earlier, that although this world is broken, we in Christ have hope. We are not without hope. Before we move on and get too deep in, I think it's important that we define the word hope, because the world around us and God are gonna offer us two very different definitions of the word. Um, the hope that the world offers us can leave us cynical, disappointed, jaded, and the hope that God offers has the possibility of leaving us content and joyful no matter what our circumstances are. So let's talk about the uh the definitions that we're gonna be using. The world defines hope as wishful thinking about possibilities. Now, this is most often, I think, the sense that we use the word in our everyday conversation. Um, it's really easy to think about it this way. It's it's having a desire for a certain thing to happen or a certain thing to not happen, but really either outcome is a possibility. There's an element of unknown, it's a toss-up. You know, I hope I get a raise, I might, I might not. I hope my child gets into a good school, but I really don't know if it's gonna happen. We have these these wishes that really could turn out either way, and that's the way the world would define the word hope. Um, it's not certain. But when we look to our hope in Christ, it's actually very, very different. The Bible defines hope as confident expectation in God's promises. Okay? It's not rooted in possibilities. Our hope in Christ is rooted in promises. It's a steadfast knowledge that God's promises, although not completely realized, are nonetheless completely dependable and true. There's a really good definition in Hebrews 6. The author says the kind of hope that we have is a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul. That this hope is a sure, steadfast anchor for our soul. And I think it's a really, really good analogy, because what does an anchor do? It keeps the ship from moving no matter what the waves and the winds around it are doing. Okay, without an anchor, the ship is completely at the mercy of the sea. But when you drop the anchor, does not matter what the weather's like, does not matter what the waves are doing, the ship is rooted to the spot that it needs to be. So there's two kinds of hope: the hope of the world and the hope that God offers. Let's look at the hope that can disappoint us. Why does worldly hope leave us disappointed and jaded? Okay? It leaves us disappointed and jaded because the world, the hope that the world offers, promises to us, it promises to our heart things that it actually can't and doesn't have the capacity to deliver. Let's say a common worldly hope is the hope that our lives will eventually get better, or that our lives will get easier, or that we're on an upward trajectory, and all we need is for one thing to change, that once this one circumstance changes, our heart will be at rest. We wrongly put our hope and our circumstances changing for the better. Once I get my next paycheck, we can pay off the credit card. Once I get out of debt, once we pay off the house, once I'm over this illness, once I get some sleep, maybe that's just me. Once my kid can go to the bathroom by themselves, once I find a spouse, um, if you get hangry like me or Harley around 1130, once I get some food, or if you're like my wife, uh, once I get some coffee in the morning, it's this wishful thought that when our circumstances change, then we'll find happiness and peace. And there's a sense, yes, in which changing circumstances can bring us temporary relief or they can make us happy, but that that deep hunger in our hearts for rest is something that our circumstances can't bring. Because has anybody ever really gotten to the day when you have enough and you can finally lean back and life is slowed down enough that you can say, ah, my heart is now completely at rest. I know for me, it's like it's like in football. The chains keep moving down the field. The definition of what rest is, we keep looking for it in this position, and and the goal keeps moving. Because once we achieve the thing we thought would bring us peace, it didn't work. And you're like, oh, I've got to look for the next thing. Because sometimes the most anxious times in my life have been when you know I achieved something in work or something that I was dreading ended, and I sit down and I go, uh-oh, my heart still wants something else. There's an actor named Jim Carrey who uh he once said in an interview, and I'm gonna paraphrase this, he said, I wish that everyone could be as successful as I am and could have achieved and have the same level of wealth that I have, that they would get to the top of the mountain so that they would know that once they get there, that there's really nothing there. Because our circumstances can never in themselves bring us the peace that we want. They can't do it, they don't have the power. And the Bible knows this is true, because if you read the book of Ecclesiastes, the author of Ecclesiastes has already done a lot of hard work for us. King Solomon, the guy that wrote this book, he undertook a study in his life of human nature. Okay? He studied wisdom, what is wisdom, what is this he studied life, what is the meaning of life. He wants to know why we are alive, what is the meaning and purpose of life, and how can we find contentment? Okay, and so in the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon presents us with the finding of his study. This is what he says in Ecclesiastes 2. So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also remained with me. All that my eyes desired, I did not deny them, I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. This was my reward for all my struggles. When I considered all that I had accomplished, and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile, and a pursuit of the wind. There was nothing to be gained under the sun. We put a weight on our stuff, on our circumstances, and our material lives that they're not able to bear. The need of the human heart is too heavy for these things, okay? They're gonna break under the pressure of our deep-seated need and our need for peace. When we put our hope in stuff and circumstances, they're going to fail us 100% of the time. Jesus already warned us about this too. In Matthew 6, he says, don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth. I think we should read that again. Jesus doesn't just say, hey, don't think about doing it, it might not be a great idea. He says, don't. Don't collect for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But collect for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Why do we try to collect treasures? It's because we think that when we have them, we can rest. We think when we have enough of them, we can have peace. They're our defense against our great fear and our great insecurity. Jesus says this too in John 16. He says, In this world, you will have trouble, okay? It's a certainty. And he's not talking about struggling to pay your mortgage, okay? He's not talking about just getting sick. That's not the kind of trouble he's talking about. He's talking about the fact that the world is an enemy of Jesus. Satan is an enemy of us, God's church. Paul says in 2 Timothy 3.12, he says, in fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. So ask yourself this question: Do you want to live a godly life? So, what is Scripture telling you that you can expect? Here's the point. We cannot hope for a world that is at its core antagonistic to us, antagonistic to our faith to ever offer us peace. Putting our hope in this world to offer us peace and joy is completely foolish. This world is our enemy and it hates us. If we're hoping for this life and our circumstances here to bring us ultimate peace, at best we're going to be disappointed. And at worst, we're going to miss out on Jesus and we're going to be damned. We've got to remember, we must remember and remind ourselves that circumstances cannot bring us the peace that we want. So if it's true that this world in our life here is difficult, it's certain to be difficult, if the pleasures of this world can't ultimately satisfy our heart, and if persecution and loss and pain are a guarantee, what hope is there for us? And don't worry, I'm not going to end the sermon right now. We're going to get to the good part. So the world's advice is simply try to avoid pain. Try to escape pain. Try to get your circumstances better. But biblical hope is different. Biblical hope is about seeing that there is purpose in our pain. The Holy Spirit, speaking through Paul, is going to tell us this in 2 Corinthians. And just to be clear, before we get into this scripture, Paul's going to refer to us being clay jars. It means that we, although being frail, although being weak, just humans, that the gospel, this treasure, has been entrusted to us, although we're just, you know, cheap, breakable vessels. Paul says this in 2 Corinthians. Now we have this treasure in charge of jars of clay, so that this extraordinary power may be from God and not from us. We are pressured in every way, but not crushed. We are perplexed, but not in despair. We are persecuted, but not abandoned. We are struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry the death of Jesus in our body, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. Remember the scripture we read in Romans 5. Let's read it again. God's word says, We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God, and not only that, but we also rejoice in our afflictions. Because we know that affliction produces endurance. Endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope. How crazy is that? Because Scripture is not just saying that we can have hope and joy and peace in our suffering. It's saying that God actually chooses to use suffering to bring us those things. That it's through our suffering, through the through the trial. Of this world that we learn to endure. It's through these things that we gain this ultimate hope. Because God's reminding us through it that this world is not where our hope lies. He's showing us that there's purpose in our suffering and that there's a world beyond this suffering. Remember, Paul says we rejoice in the hope of this glory of God. That we have a hope that the glory of God is coming. For followers of Jesus, for us here at Point, our pain isn't pointless. God uses it to produce these things in us. And our endurance and hope in pain is a powerful witness to the world that our God is real, that He satisfies us, not our circumstances. We share in the sufferings of Jesus, which is an experience that all Christians are called to. There's a section in one of Paul's letters where he mentions that he has a thorn in his flesh. Although we may not know specifically what he's talking about, we don't know exactly what that thorn was. We know that it made Paul really, really miserable. Okay? He was really miserable. We know that he begged God to take it away. Now this we're going to read the section where Paul writes about this. And for some background, we should know that if we know much about the Apostle Paul, we know that he had some pretty crazy experiences with Jesus. We know Jesus called him up into something called the third heaven. Maybe one of you guys can explain what that means to me at some time. We know that Jesus preached Paul the gospel. He heard the gospel from Jesus in a vision. We know that he's been a part of miracles and seeing massive numbers of people come to Jesus. So Paul has a lot of reasons to feel pretty good about himself. This is what he writes in 2 Corinthians. He says, So to keep me from being conceited, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me. Pretty interesting that he calls that a gift. He says, Thorn was given to me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, pleaded, begged, that it should leave me. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made per is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So the question is the second half of that section is amazing. Paul is like, I'm gonna boast of my weakness. I'm content in any circumstance. For when I'm weak, I'm strong. The question is, how did God create this humility in Paul? How did he create this steadfastness in Paul? How did he give him a heart that boasted in weakness? It was through his suffering. That God taught Paul these things through this thorn. It was through Paul's sufferings that God created this character in him. He gave him endurance, proving character, and that led to Paul's hope. So as comforting as the hope that our suffering and affliction and pain is not without purpose. It's not the only hope we have. We also have this confident expectation that there will be a future kingdom. We have a hope of heaven, a future where affliction and pain will be no more. It'll cease. That our God and King will restore creation, that the groaning will come to fruition, that what sin is broken will be repaired, that everlasting life and joy is coming for us, that the tears that we've cried in this life, that God will wipe them from our eyes and we'll never have to cry in sadness again. That we'll literally with our own eyes, we will look at God in the flesh, face to face. We will stand before God someday and see him with our eyes. It's what we were actually made for. You'll probably heard the first part of this quote. This is C.S. Lewis. This is from Mere Christianity. He writes, If I find myself in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthly pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud. Probably earthly pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing. If that is so, I must take care, on one hand, never to despise or be unthankful for these earthly blessings, and on the other, never to mistake them for the something else of which they are only a kind, or copy, or echo, or mirage. I must keep alive in myself the desire for my true country, which I shall not find till after death. I must never let it get snowed under or turned aside. I must make it the main object of my life to press on to that other country and help others do the same. Now, maybe some of you guys have heard this objection that I'm about to say, maybe you haven't, but I've heard it a lot in my time that people criticize Christians for being too focused on heaven. They'll criticize us, they'll say, Christians are so heavenly minded that they're no earthly good. You ever heard that before? It's cute. It's a cute phrase, it's it's clever. The only problem with that criticism is actually the Bible. Okay? In Colossians 3, the word says, seek what is above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on what is above, and not on what is on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ and God. What does Paul say, too? Look at Paul. He says he's straining towards this goal like an athlete, running as fast as he can towards the finish line. He has his eyes completely set on the prize. And in fact, it's Paul's focus on this future kingdom that is his fuel for service. It's also his comfort in suffering. Because he's looking forward to a day when that suffering will end. You know, the most successful missionary that has ever lived was completely focused and transfixed by heaven. And I think we can learn something from that, that when we set our minds on things that are above, on our future home with Jesus, it gives us perspective and it gives us peace to remain steadfast no matter our circumstances. It's this future hope that gives us anticipation and joy in our suffering. You know, the word also says, if we have hope for this life only, we are to be pitied above all men. But praise be to God, we don't. We have hope for a coming world and a coming kingdom. And it is good and right to think about that and to find comfort in it. So at the end of the day, just like everything in Scripture does, this all comes back to the gospel. Remember what the word says at the beginning. This is the last time we're going to go back to it. The beginning of Romans chapter 5, it says, Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So this is the foundation of the hope that we have. It's the gospel of Jesus. No matter who you are in this room, whether you're following Christ or this is your first time to ever set foot in a church, all of us are described by these words from Ephesians 2. This applies to everyone. At that time, you were without the Messiah, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world. Every human being has been there, every human being has known what it's like to be without hope, whether you know it or not. And if you follow Jesus in this room, you know, you can hear this verse, and it actually fills you with comfort because you remember that although at one time you were excluded from the life of God, that He has rescued you, He's bought you, He's washed you clean, He's forgiven you of your sin, and He's given you the Holy Spirit, that you have a confident expectation that God's promises of redemption are true, and that you will be with Him in glory. It's a wonderful verse to read as we remember what God has done for us. But if you're not a Christian, if you're not following Jesus, you've never experienced that freedom. You've never really experienced this real hope. And what the word of God is saying, that outside of Jesus there isn't hope for us. The only thing that we can expect is to get what we deserve, which is punishment and separation from God. Okay? Death and sin are our big enemies. Those are the very enemies that Jesus conquered on the cross when he bore the weight and punishment of our sin. And death is the enemy that he beat in his resurrection, so that we can have confidence that death is not the end for us. So God offers us all forgiveness today. If you're not a follower of Jesus, I just want you to know that it's not an accident that you're in this room. God saw every day of your life before you were born. He knows you, he knows you intimately, he knows the deepest motivations and needs of your heart. And I truly believe that the reason that you're here, if you're not following Jesus, is that God wants to offer you hope in the gospel. He wants to give you eternal hope, that there is life beyond the grave. But to get that hope, to receive that life, we have to realize that Jesus paid the penalty that we deserve, that none of us deserve to enter heaven on our own merit. Because even our righteous deeds are like filthy rags in God's sight. We need the grace of Jesus Christ. So if you've never accepted Jesus, if you've never received his forgiveness, ask the Lord if he's drawing you to himself today. And if you need to talk to a pastor or an elder about it, um, during these last few songs, um, me and Harley will be down at the front, and there will be some elders around the room if you want to talk to somebody about what it means to put your hope in Jesus this morning. Let's pray. Father, thank you for not leaving us in our sin. Thank you for not leaving us without hope. That we were without hope in the world, God, but that you came. You did not leave us alone, but you lived the life we cannot live. You died the death that we deserved. To bring us the hope of eternal life, that we could have hope in our pain, hope in our trials. God, that we await the day when you will bring us to yourself. We will be with you, Jesus. We will see you face to face. We love you. Jesus' name. Amen.