Sermon Category: The Waiting

After the exile, the people of Israel lived under the domination of gentile nations. The Davidic throne was deposed, and the reality of the kingdom gave way to the promise that one day God would restore David’s throne through the coming of the Messiah. Many waited to see what seemed like an impossible promise. But in the fullness of time, God sent his son to make sure that his every promise would in him find fulfillment. The king would come not to satisfy the expectations of men but to make sure God’s will is done as it is in heaven.

He had it all and lost it all. The story of God’s people in the kingdom of Israel is a series of ups and downs. Even the greatest kings have dark chapters. When we fail, we are sometimes tempted to quit and give up in our pursuit of hope. Beyond human performance, God’s promises lift our eyes to see beyond the horizon of our capacity to what only God can do. The God of the Bible is a God who succeeds where our efforts fail.

Every name in the story of Christ’s genealogy from Abraham to David shows the obstacles that hope must face when hoping against all human odds to succeed. Whether it is infertility or a rebellious child, immorality or being foreigners in a foreign land, marginalization or obscurity waiting to be found, the hope of God’s people to be seen, heard, and known finds fulfillment as God calls us to become what we could not become on our own.

Waiting is hard when we are under pressure or in need. Hope is the result of patiently waiting on God to fulfill his promises. Hundreds of years before the coming of Christ, Isaiah prophesied of the day when our every hope would be fulfilled in the coming of God himself. Beyond all doubt God’s people would be able to declare “Behold this is our God, we have waited for him that he might save us” Isaiah 25:9. Christ is indeed the fulfillment of this prophecy for he is Emanuel, God with us.