'Tis The Season To Be Hopeful | Pastor Rebecca Peterson

Good morning, good morning, you can take a seat. So grateful that you are here today. It's gonna be a good morning today. We are continuing our series that we've been in over the last couple of weeks called Tis the Season. And each week we've just been reminding ourselves of some things that we need as we are in the holiday season. And so before we jump in, I wanna take a minute to welcome our amazing online family that is joining us online today. Hey, we hope to see you Monday and Tuesday for Christmas at Rise. We'd love to have you in the room, but we're grateful that you are tuning in today. And then I would love for us to put our hands together for all the men and women who are joining us in correction facilities all across the US. Every single week we're seeing inmates join us, hundreds joining and worshiping with us. And we are seeing salvations happening every single week. And so we love you. You are a part of our church family. We're grateful that you are here with us today. And I believe that God is going to encourage your heart this morning. And so I'm excited to jump in today because I think that the topic that we are going to look to in God's word is something that all of us need as we step into the holiday season. And so today my message is entitled very simple,

Tis the Season to be Hopeful. Tis the Season to be Hopeful. How many of you are losing hope this morning that that missing package is gonna show up at your doorstep? Anybody waiting? No, you are the, okay, yeah, I knew it, I knew it. Thankfully all, this is, it's a miracle from the Lord really that all of our packages have made it in and we're ready to rock and roll. But today I love this topic of hope. And so we're gonna look to God's word this morning because what I know about the holiday season is that it really highlights the struggles that we are walking through and experiencing in our life. And so if you have been in a season of loss or heartache or sadness when the holidays come, it really highlights what those heartaches, it highlights the things that we're walking through, it makes it feel harder and a little bit heavier. If you are experiencing financial struggles when you get close to the holidays, come on, it highlights those struggles and it makes everything feel a little bit more difficult. And so because the holidays can tend to make things feel harder, we've gotta dig into God's word a little bit more so that it can bring some hope to our hearts today. And so we are gonna jump into a lot of scripture. And so I'd love for you to get out the note sheet in the seat back in front of you.

There's a pen there, there's a note sheet, maybe you've got a journal, and take some notes because as you go throughout your week, you're gonna think, man, what was that scripture that really encouraged my heart? And you're not gonna remember. And so get out your notes, let's take some notes today, let's write these scriptures down together. And so the simplest definition of the word hope that I can think of is the expectation that something good is coming. The expectation that something is around the corner. Maybe we don't fully know what it is, maybe it is something that we've been hoping for, but it's this expectation, this anticipation that something good is coming. I feel this anticipation when it gets about nine o'clock at night. And I know, man, bedtime is almost here. And I love to sleep. And so I've already showered, I've got my jammies on, and I know, girl, you only gotta make it 30, maybe 45 more minutes, those older kids can tuck themselves in, and bedtime is coming, and I feel some hope that I can make it just a little bit longer. I feel like right now that the world in general is lacking hope. Life is hard, everything's expensive, the world is politically divided,

we're all walking through our own personal things, and it feels right now like we're all just lacking in some hope. And maybe we're just lacking in hope in a couple of small areas, or maybe just all across the board, we are lacking hope in humanity, we're lacking hope in the political climate of our world, and so we need hope to ground us in these hard seasons. And here's some good news, God's word gives us the answer to everything that we need in our life. And there was a season in the world where people felt so similar to what we're feeling right now, the Jewish people had been living in this anticipation that Jesus was going to come, that he was going to be born, that he was going to change things, because like us, they were living in a really difficult political climate. They were being taxed very unfairly. Like us, they were wishing that life was not so expensive. Like us, they were wishing that Jesus would come in and put an end to injustice in the world. And like us, they were hopeful, yet starting to lose hope, that Jesus actually knew and cared about what they were walking through and that he was going to come and do something new. But Jesus was coming, and he was on the way, and he was coming full of hope. But he was not necessarily coming maybe in the way

that they fully expected or anticipated, because he was coming not just to end the injustice in the world, but he was coming as a savior. And he was coming fully God, yet fully man. He was coming as a baby, yet he was coming as a king, ready to save the world and ready to bring hope to their very tired and weary hearts. And the good news for us this morning is that Jesus has come, and he continues to show up in every single season of our life. I love this Christmas song, O Holy Night, that says a thrill of hope, a weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn. And so the Jewish people were experiencing this thrill of hope that Jesus was coming, and that he was gonna be everything that they had anticipated for. You know that thrill of hope, right? When something's coming, you know that feeling. I get that thrill of hope like on Friday, when I know it's my day off. I don't have to get ready all day. I get to have Chick-fil-A for lunch, and I know it's just gonna be like a really great day, and so you get that thrill of hope on Thursday night, knowing the day off is the next day. And so they were experiencing this thrill of hope that Jesus was coming to them, and that he was gonna come in fullness, and he was gonna complete and fulfill every prophecy

that had been spoken about them. And so today, maybe you have lost some hope. Maybe you've lost some hope in a situation in your life, or maybe you really have lost hope that, man, the world just feels like a mess, and I can't see that anything good is going to come from this. I want to remind us today who God has been to us. I wanna remind us who God is to us in our present, and I want us to be able to look to the future with hope. And so I've got three thoughts for us this morning, and the first is that if we want to walk in hope, we've gotta remember who he has been and who he always will be. We have to remember who God has been, what his track record is to us, and who he will be to us. And so we're gonna be in the book of Lamentations this morning for a little bit. And I love this chapter, but if you go and read it, it's not so pretty. There's a lot of really hard verses and really hard scripture, because this is the prophet Jeremiah, and what he is lamenting, he is getting all of his sorrow out on paper, and it's very poetic, but it's very difficult to read through because he is about to, he is experiencing destruction of Jerusalem,

and it is a hard season where he's seeing loss, where they have been walking in sin, and God is bringing some destruction down, and so he is really lamenting and getting all of his thoughts out here on paper. But what Jeremiah shows us is that his circumstance is hard, but then you see moments where he pivots and he grabs a hold of hope. And so he's showing us that while you can have sorrow and grief and loss and heartache, you also can have hope at the same time, that the two things can walk together in every season of our life. And so we're gonna read in Lamentations 3. He says, I cry out, my splendor is gone. Everything I had hoped for from the Lord is lost. The thought of my suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words. He goes on to say, I will never forget this awful time as I grieve over my loss. But then he has a shift and he says, but yet I still dare to hope when I remember this, that the faithful love of the Lord never ends, that his mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness. His mercies begin afresh each morning. And he says, I say to myself, the Lord is my inheritance. Therefore, I will hope in him.

So Jeremiah goes from, man, I will never forget what I'm experiencing right now. The loss, my home being destroyed, people just suffering. I will never forget this. But he says, yet I still. dare to hope when I remember that God loves me, that he's gonna be faithful to me, that his mercies are gonna be new every single morning for me. And so again, he is showing us, hey, you can suffer and you can walk through hurt, but you also can call to mind who God has been to you and who he will be to you, and that will fill your heart with hope. And so yes, let's be honest about the things that we're experiencing in our lives, but there has to be a moment where we say, but God, I know who you've been to me, I know you've been faithful, I know your love has chased me down, I know you've carried me through every season of my life, and so I can have hope even though my circumstance feels really difficult and really hard. He says, when I remember that God loves me, I'm filled with hope. There has to be moments in our life where we just get up and say, hey, this is hard. I'll actually never forget what this gut-wrenching pain feels like. I'll never forget this loss,

I'll never forget how hard this season was, I'll never forget every ache and pain that I'm experiencing in my life, but I'm gonna call to mind who God is to me, I'm gonna remember his faithfulness, and it's going to bring me hope, so I might get up and say, hey, it's been a really hard week, my finances are a mess, I'm not gonna ignore what I'm experiencing right now, but I'm gonna remember that I've got a faithful God who loves me. Hey, this sickness might really be the thing that feels like it's taking me out, but I'm gonna remember that the God of the universe loves me and is for me, and that love is gonna fill my heart with hope. He is not telling you to ignore the things you're experiencing in your life, but he is telling you to remember the faithful love of God that has always been there for you. Thought number two this morning is that we've gotta find him in the present. We have to find God in the present season of our life, because it can be really easy to be in the middle of a really hard season of our life and to take our eyes off Jesus and just to place them on the situation, on the circumstance that we're walking through.

And when we do that, we will feel hopeless if all that we are seeing is the hurting in our life, especially when it's a season that we've been waiting a really long time for God to come through on. And it feels like we have been waiting, and waiting, and waiting, and year, you hit Christmas and you're like, another year, another year of not seeing an answer, another year of not seeing relief, another year of struggling still. And the Jewish people, they had been waiting for years for Jesus to come and be born. From the end, from the last prophet who spoke about Jesus coming to when Jesus actually came was hundreds of years that they had waited, that this had been spoken. This was a promise that God had given them, yet they weren't seeing it happen right away. And so I'm sure that many people lost hope in that season, but there was a remnant who had hope that what God said would actually happen. But in those waiting seasons, it's also a time for God to work on us. It is an opportunity for us to say, God, this is a long, hard season, and I'm waiting for you to do something, and I'm waiting for you to bring change. But in the meantime, I'm gonna actually let you get to work on my heart.

Because God's working in every season. He works in the good, and he works in the not so good. But it is in the not so good hard seasons that I believe God does his best work in our heart. And so let's look at the scripture in Romans 5. It says, therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith. And so what he's saying is, because we've put our faith in Jesus, we've been made right with God. We've got peace with God, we've got access with God, we now have a relationship with God. And so we have access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. So this is the confidence that we stand in today. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, and this is the hard part, but we also glory in our sufferings. Because we know that suffering produces perseverance. Perseverance produces character, and character leads to hope. And this hope is not a hope. hope in our circumstances, this is actually a hope that doesn't lead to disappointment. Because we know that God dearly loves us because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love. And so this is not a hope in our situation,

this is not a hope in the hard seasons, this isn't a hope in our suffering, this is a hope that doesn't disappoint. Why? Because I know that God loves me. And if I know that God loves me, then I know God's for me. Then I know that God's gonna be faithful to me, then I know God's gonna take care of me, then I know God's going to be with me. And this is a hope that doesn't disappoint us, this is a hope that will not just help us get by, this isn't a hope that's just gonna help us barely survive, this is a hope that is going to allow us to thrive through the hard seasons of our life because when I know God loves me, I'm gonna let him do a work inside of me. And so if we can dig in, in the middle of the hard seasons, and say, God, I don't understand this, God, I don't really like this, but I'm gonna choose to give you praise in the middle of my suffering because I know you're gonna produce something really good in me. And you're gonna give me some perseverance. And that perseverance is gonna lead to really godly character. And that godly character is gonna lead me to a confident hope in who you are to me.

So if we can say, man, God, this is hard, and I don't glory in my sufferings for no reason, I glory because I know you're gonna do something in me. I love this quote, it says, whenever I go through something hard, the question must be, God, what am I lacking that you must produce in me? So when you're in the middle of a hard season, it's not, God, get me through this as quickly as possible, listen, that's an honest prayer, I get it. But if we can look and say, God, this stinks, and this is so hard, but what do you wanna produce in me? What godly character am I lacking in my life? What do I need endurance for in the future that you wanna produce in me now? What kind of character do you wanna build in me so that I can't just withstand just this season of my life, but so that I can withstand every difficult season of my life because of what you've done in me now? If you don't think God can do a work in your mess, you will be hopeless. But if you think, man, I believe that God can do something even in the middle of this, and it starts inside of my heart, then you will have hope that your suffering is never for nothing, that your loss is not just nothing, that God will use it for his good, and he's gonna use it for your good. He's gonna use it to produce something inside of you that you are lacking. I tried to look up what Paul meant when he said,

I glory in my sufferings. I thought, surely that's not what he meant. Like, maybe he just meant something else. No, that's exactly what he meant. And he didn't mean, hey, be thankful that this is really hard, be thankful for the loss. That's not what he meant. He meant give God praise when you find yourself in trouble because it means he's gonna do something in you that you might not have experienced otherwise, and he's gonna produce something great in you. He's gonna build a faith in you. He's gonna build a confidence in you. He's going to build some strength and endurance in you, and it's gonna help you, but it's also gonna help others. And so dig in in the hard seasons and let God work in you. When I step into a season where God has answered my prayer of mine, it is my prayer that I will jump into that season full of hope. Man, I've been waiting for this. Like, God, I've been in anticipation for what you were going to do because you've been working in my heart every step of the way. So if you are in a waiting season, do not lose hope today. Lift your eyes to Jesus and let him work in your heart. The next thought we have, our last thought this morning, is that we are going to look to the future with hope. We aren't gonna look to the future with dread. We aren't gonna look to the future in a weary state.

We are going to look to the future with hope. And so we're gonna continue to look at the Prophet Jeremiah and so this next scripture that we're gonna look at. So we heard from Jeremiah in Lamentations, and this is when he is really lamenting and he is really lamenting about the destruction of his home that he is seeing, and the sadness and the loss that he's experiencing. We're gonna now read a scripture in the book of Jeremiah, and this scripture actually comes before the. destruction, and so he knows what's going to come. He knows that the heartache is around the corner. He knows that his people are gonna be living 70 years in exile, 70 years in suffering, and so he speaks to them now about what they're going to be experiencing down the road, and so this is kind of like a heart prep. He is preparing them for what they are going to experience, and he says to them, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future, and so he knows they're going to experience suffering and loss, and what does he do? He points them to the promises of the Lord, and he says in the future, God actually wants to prosper you and not harm you. For those who hope and trust in him, he has plans to give you hope. He has plans to give you a future, and so he is reminding them now of the promises of God so that when they walk through a hard season,

they will be able to walk through it full of hope, knowing that God's got a future for them, that God's plans will always prevail. It's like he's giving them this heads up that, hey, hope is actually going to be possible, even though you're about to experience a really hard season. He believed wholeheartedly that even though he knew loss and heartache and sadness are on the way, so is the hope of the Lord, that it will be there every single day, and he does not just give them a pep talk here. He points them to the truth of the word of God. He points them to the promises of the Lord. He says, this is what the Lord declares over you, that he's gonna give you hope and a future. When we walk through hard seasons of our lives, we have to cling to the promises of God. We need them. They are life-giving to us. We're gonna switch over to this scripture in Hebrews, and it starts with this, and it starts out in this chapter by telling us that when people want to make a promise, that in these days, when people would wanna make a promise to someone, they wanted to give their word, that they would do so by getting someone an authority to back up their word. So it would be like you needing to make a promise to somebody here, and you get past your item and say,

hey, you know my word is good. Can you back me up? Can you let them know I'm good for it, that I mean what I say when I mean it? But then it goes on to say, but when God gives his word, it's a little bit different. And so let's look at Hebrews 6. It says, God also bound himself with an oath so that when those who received the promise could be perfectly sure that he would never change his mind. So God has given both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. So therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge, those of us who run to God for refuge, we can have great confidence as we hold to the hope that lies before us, that we have this hope as an anchor for our soul, firm and secure. So we have this hope that when God speaks, that when he speaks a promise, it is unchangeable, that it is going to happen, that it's not just some well-meaning phrase that he says over us, that it is truth that we can cling to. And when we cling to it, it's gonna be hope that is actually going to anchor our soul in the darkest seasons of our life. Your hope cannot be anchored in the things of this world. If it is, you will sink into sadness every single day of your life.

Your hope must be anchored in his promises. It must be anchored in his word. But if it's gonna be anchored in his word, you gotta get in his word. You have to know the truth. You have to know these promises. You've gotta declare them over your life. My hope is not anchored in this world. This world is a mess. It is a terrible thing for us to put our hope in. We don't put our hope in political candidates, praise the Lord. We don't put our hope in our hard seasons. We don't put our hope in our circumstances. We put our hope in the firm foundation of Jesus Christ and in the truth of his word. I'm gonna invite Pastor Jonathan up as we close out this morning. And I put these little. prayer sheets or promises of hope in your seats. And it's got some just beautiful scriptures, some of my favorite ones that I love to read over my life and declare over my life when I'm walking through hard seasons. And so I'd love for you to take this and put it in your Bible, put it on your nightstand, put it in your car, put it on your mirror, wherever you'll see it every single day over the coming days as we step into Christmas week. And in the moments when you start to feel a lack of hope,

the moments where you start to think, man, I'm feeling a little bit hopeless about the situations in my life. I want you to read over these scriptures. I want you to meditate on them. I want you to memorize them. They're not that hard. Read over them a handful of times. Come on, you'll have them really quick, I promise you. And I want you to read over words like, those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow faint. They will walk and not grow weary. So as we were stepping into Christmas week, I just kind of started to feel a little down. I thought I was just grouchy. I was like, gosh, I'm in a bad mood. But that bad mood went from like one day to the next day to the next day. You know how it goes. Then you're like, I don't know if this is just a bad mood or if this is just a weird season. And I started to feel like, I think I'm feeling a little lack of hope. And the Lord was like, yeah, this is where you are. Like, you have a lack of hope. You have forgotten who I've been to you. And God knows how to deal with my heart because I'm not a like pat me on the back, gentle girl.

I need God to like speak a little bit like tough love to me sometimes. And I felt like the Lord was like, hey, you're lacking in hope. What are you gonna do about it? Like, where are you gonna go from here, Rebecca? And so I was in my car and I turned on some worship music and I'm trying to sing and I'm just like, nope, this is not helping. In fact, I actually think I like how I feel. I just wanna stay in this. I kind of, you know, you're like throwing yourself a pity party, right? And you're just like, I like what I feel right now. And I felt like the Lord was like, we need to do something about this. Like, this is not what I have called you to do. And so I turned down the music and I just began to kind of just speak over my life, not my own words, but began to just declare the promises of God over my life. I said, Rebecca, when you are weak, God is strong. When you're feeling weary, he's actually gonna be your strength. He is your rest. He is your refuge and your strength. He is a safe place for you to run to. Hey, when you walk through hard seasons, he's gonna be with you.

When you are brokenhearted, he is close to you. And I just began to read these scriptures over my life. Hey, when you're tired, he's gonna be your rest. He comforts you in all of your troubles. And before I knew it, I started to feel a little bit of hope. And I started to feel like I was getting my joy back. And so I just kept declaring the scriptures over my life and began to really claim them as my own. Let's look back really fast at lamentations. I say to myself, Jeremiah says, the Lord is my inheritance. I say to myself, I speak this truth over myself. He's not speaking good vibes over himself. He's not patting himself on the back and saying, hey, you got this, you can do this. No, he is declaring the truth of God's word over his life. Good vibes will get you through a bad day. We're not just trying to survive a bad day. We need a hope that's gonna anchor our lives. And so we've got to declare the truth of God's word again and again over our life until we start to believe it and until we start to claim it as our own. And when we do that, we will be anchored in his hope. So I'm gonna invite you to stand and we're gonna spend just a couple of minutes praying over each other today. And so if you're in here this morning and you'd like to be honest and just say, hey, I feel like I'm lacking in some hope in my life,

would you just lift your hand all across the room? And so I'm gonna pray over us, but what I also want us to do is I want us to pray over each other. And so if someone's got their hand raised, I'm just gonna ask you to just put a hand on their shoulder until everybody's got a hand on the shoulder. You can put your hand down when somebody puts their hand on your shoulder so we know everybody's covered. And I'm just gonna pray over us, but while I pray, I want you to pray out loud over the person that you've got your hand on because your prayers are just. just as powerful this morning. And so, God, we thank you that your presence is here. Thank you that you have sent your Holy Spirit to be with us this morning. God, thank you that your word stands firm forever, that your promises go from generation to generation. And so this morning, God, we cling to the truth of your word, that you are near to the brokenhearted, God, that you save those whose spirits are feeling crushed this morning. God, thank you that you are our peace, you are our hope, you are our joy. I pray right now against hopelessness in Jesus' name, and I pray that hope would be restored to the weariest of hearts today.

I pray, God, that you would remind us who you are, that you would give us eyes to see right now that you are working and moving in ways that we can't always see or understand. I pray that even in the waiting seasons right now, God, that you would produce so much good fruit in us. God, that you would produce godly character, that you would produce endurance. God, I pray that we would be filled with your hope, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.