Hey there! Welcome to the podcast. In today’s episode, we’ll be taking a look at the hope and the promise of Christmas, from Luke chapter two. This is a time of year when hope is a watchword, and traditionally has been a season when people are much more open to receive kindness and blessings and when you say Merry Christmas and God bless you, maybe they don’t do that little uncomfortable wince that happens at times. This year, let’s take a few minutes and consider the hope we have because of Christmas, and because of all the promises God made and then fulfilled when Jesus came to earth as a newborn baby. 
 
You’re listening to The Burt (Not Ernie) Show, part of the Spark Network, now playing in the Edifi app. That’s Edifi, spelled E D I F I, and you can find it in your device’s app store. The hope and the promise of Christmas is our focus today, and this is episode number 201. 
 
As I did some research for this episode, I read that there were at least eight specific prophecies that were fulfilled when Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Now of course, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies when He lived on this earth, and died and rose again. And the remainder will absolutely be fulfilled at His second coming. But regarding His birth in Bethlehem, we find the fulfillment of prophecies from Genesis 22:18, Numbers 24:17, Isaiah 7:14 (that one is a common Christmas card verse, for good reason), Isaiah 9:6-7, Daniel 9:25-26, Micah 5:2 (one of my favorite verses for this time of year), Jeremiah 31:15, Hosea 11:1 which does tie in with the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem. 
 
The Bible truly is an amazing book, God’s Word is profound. And at Christmastime, I hope it has a profound impact and blessing on your life. I say this a lot, but I think it needs to be said often -  not only are God’s promises true…they are true for you. He loves you enough to make promises to you and then to keep those promises. And that’s where hope comes in for us - we have such great hope because we’ve seen Him keep His promises, and in the midst of tough times, we hold on to our hope that He will continue to keep His promises. This is not hope misplaced; it’s the opposite - perfectly placed hope. Hope in the Lord ends up being the kind of faith that yields results. It’s unseen at first, those results, but ends up being seen when our faith becomes sight. If you need some hope right now, well, this is for you.
 
From the Amplified, Luke chapter two verse 1 says: Now in those days a decree went out from (the emperor) Caesar Augustus, that all the inhabited world (the Roman Empire) should be registered (in a census). 
So this was more than just an emperor deciding he needed to take a census and get an accounting of all the citizens of his empire. This was done at the Lord’s behest, because of His will. One of the things that is easy to overlook in the Christmas story, to take for granted, because we’ve heard this passage so many times, year after year, it’s easy to overlook the significance of the way God’s hand, albeit invisible, was at work to move the heart of Caesar to order this census that required everyone to return to their own city, hometown, the town for their family’s official registration. And if we just read verse one, that single sentence, and move right on into the rest of the chapter, we can miss the reality that’s here for us, for our lives, right now. God moves in the lives and in the hearts of men, women, and children. He moves little people, and that’s like little in quotes because all mankind is so precious to Him, nobody is small or miniscule to Him. Our God is not in the business of marginalizing people. He created each one, knitting each in their mother’s womb, has engraved us on the palms of His hands, and no one is without value to Him. So that’s not what I mean when I say little persons. What I mean is, societally, the shepherds were not big wigs, power players, in that culture. And yet, they were given the message, the announcement, of the birth of the Messiah, the very Son of God. Amazing! The emperor, Caesar Augustus, was moved to issue the decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world, all his empire, and so mankind was on the move, headed to their hometowns to be registered as part of this mandatory census. Don’t miss this. There is great importance and value to this moment in time - and it’s valuable and important for your life. The God of hope is the God who wants you to believe that He can move mountains and the hearts of kings, rulers, those in authority, in order to bring about what He has in store for your life. He is not arrogant and narcissistic, that He would move those mountains and turn those hearts in ostentatious ways. He does not need to be loud about it, because He has no insecurities, needs no validation - so He can do it without there being a lot of fanfare about the WHY behind what He is doing. 
And yet, He may still announce what He is doing, with great praise and rejoicing for His goodness toward us, He may still announce it to those who are not a big noise, household name, someone important in the world’s eyes. This should amaze us, and simultaneously cause hope to spring up anew in us regarding our own lives and circumstances. 
 
Got something you have been praying about, carrying a burden about, for a long time? Weeks? Months? Years, even?
The message of Luke two verse one is for you, then. Now in those days…
My friend, for you right now, it might just be one of “those days” when God begins to move on your behalf. 
 
The hope we have when we live in a state of expectancy, of believing God for what we see no evidence of, well…that kind of hope is real hope. Romans 8:24-26 says that hope that only hopes for what is seen is no hope at all (that’s not verbatim, of course). What kind of hope do you and I have? Is your hope doing any stretching in your life? Are you having to hope more, trust more, believe more, as the days wear on and the promise isn’t yet fulfilled? Then that’s actual, biblical hope. 
Proverbs 13:12 tells us that hope deferred makes the heart sick, and that is true. So from these two passages about hope, which seem to be in conflict with each other, what do we learn? How do we make them make sense to us when we need to hold on to our hope in Jesus, and yet we can relate to the feeling of hope deferred making us heart sick? When your faith is not sight, and you cannot even begin to fathom how it will ever become sight, how do you hold on to hope and keep holding on? 
Hope really does have a name, and His name is Jesus.
Some moments are simply crawling through the crowd on your hands and knees, pressing and pushing to get to Jesus, reaching out and just skimming the edge of His robe, knowing that’s all you can do, there is no more gas in the tank, you’re spent, without Him it’s over…that’s what it is like sometimes. It’s really that rough sometimes.
Sometimes the biggest part of our faith journey ends up being hanging on to Jesus, hanging on to our hope in Him, when we are getting awfully heartsick and nearing the point of more than we can bear. (Spoiler alert: if you have not yet had a moment in your life when you were maxed out beyond what you ever dreamed you could handle, well, keep walking with Jesus and that will be your experience. It isn’t easy street, this discipleship life. It’s daily taking up your cross and following after Him, it’s knowing that the servant is not greater than the master and as they treated Him, so shall they also treat everyone who follows Him. It is a somewhat hard knock life, this life with Jesus, but these hard knocks are the hardest it will ever be and for the unbeliever, this life is the best it will ever be. Eternity is worth living for, my friend, because Jesus is there and He has gone ahead of you to make ready a place for you, that where He is, you may one day also be. It’s hard, but it’s such a good hard.)
Hope deferred does make the heart sick. It’s absolutely true. But the point at which we feel our hope has been deferred for too long is not usually the same point at which God, in His sovereignty and providence, knows our hope has been too long deferred. 
Trust Him, even when, especially when, it’s been a long, hard road. 
The journey to Bethlehem was not easy for Mary, or for Joseph. The labor and delivery, also not easy. But they were exactly where God wanted them to be for that moment in time. And they HAD to be there, according to Caesar’s decree. Everyone had to be counted and registered…and likely, taxed, too. So, all around not ideal, at least from a human point of view. But thank God we have the option, the choice, the ability thanks to the Holy Spirit who indwells us, to look at the less than ideal, difficult times of life via God’s point of view. Thank God that we have the Bible, full of all it’s raw honesty about people and sin and life, and also full of God’s love and intervention and His righteousness and His fair judgements and standard that played out at Calvary - thank God we can choose to face our most not so easy moments knowing that the God who was at work in the lives of those we read about in the Bible is also at work in and through our lives and circumstances. 
 
I want you to know that God sees you. He really does know how hard this is, how long it has been going on, and how ready you are for it to be over. We can want our deliverance to come so badly that we get hyper focused on it, and we miss the presence of God in these places. Perhaps that’s just me, maybe I am the only one who does that. It takes a reset sometimes to find God in our midst when life is overwhelming. 
 
And I’d like to mention something about overwhelm. It isn’t always what you’d think. Sometimes that one thing that pushes you right over the edge into a state of overwhelm is so small, such an itty bitty little thing, you can hardly believe that THAT was what did you in. But the old saying about the straw that broke the camel’s back? A single piece of straw does not seem like much, and by itself, it sure isn’t much, but it can be the thing that adds just enough pressure to be the last straw. Just like the last place you look is where you find something you’ve been searching for, that’s the last place I looked - well, the final straw is the one that breaks the camel’s back. Of course it is! The last one is of course the last one. But just like you didn’t think that place was where you’d find the item you’d looked for, the last straw is not the one you thought would be the deal breaker and game changer. 
 
Overwhelm happens to all of us. We need to give others grace in their overwhelm, and not judge them so severely when we don’t understand how that little old straw could be the one that is just too much because we have our own pieces of hay, basically, that do us in, too. And give yourself grace as you navigate these things. Of course, if you are in sin as a result of your straw breaking your back, repent and don’t delay in that. Today is the day to repent, to make things right with God, being sure to keep short accounts with Him. But giving yourself grace does not need to be exclusive of repentance. They go hand in glove, because the Cross is the standard for all the grace we receive and all the grace we extend to others and to ourselves, and we only access that grace by coming to the Lord in repentance and receiving Jesus as our Savior, since He was the propitiation for our sin. Give grace, to yourself and to others. Because grace is what you need when you find yourself in that place of hope getting close to being deferred for too long. Grace is yours, if you’ll have it. 
 
And next time you find yourself wondering why it is taking so long for God’s promises to be fulfilled, remember Luke chapter two, verse one. God is still on His throne, He has not abdicated and He never will. He is still sovereign over all. He is still faithful and true and dependable and consistent and true to His word. God is, after all, still God. And He is still moving the hearts of kings and rulers to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect timing. Who knows? That time might just be today. And if you find yourself in a position where you can glorify the Lord, whether you are a big noise and a big name or no-name who makes no noise that is noticeable in this world, you just go on and rejoice like those shepherds did. Because the God who delivered the message of Jesus’ birth to them is the same God who is still delivering messages to people today. Rejoice like the whole world is watching, even if nobody else is around. The darkest night can be pierced with angels rejoicing and the light of Jesus shining bright. What will you do when He shows up in your life? And what will you do while you wait for Him to show up? 
 
Merry and Blessed and Joyful and Hope-filled Christmas to you.
Thanks so much for joining me for this episode, and I do hope you’ll share it with a friend or on social media this Christmas season. 
God bless and I’ll see you next time. Bye bye.

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