What Are You Waiting For Sermon Series
What Are You Waiting For?
A Long Time Coming
The Old Testament literary prophets began writing about God’s future work of restoration more than 700 years before Jesus would be born, and those messages kept reappearing for the next 300 years. That’s a lot of generations of Israelites that would spend their entire lives waiting on God’s work of salvation to be completed. Today we live in a unique time where we are able to see how the life and work of Jesus fulfilled so many of those promises and has made peace, hope, love, and joy available to us now. At the same time, we continue their wait as we look forward to Jesus second coming, which will take all of those blessings to a level previously unimagined. Join us this Advent season as we celebrate gifts given and anticipate those to come.
What Are You Waiting For? : Messages
The subjects of the Advent season (hope, love, joy, and peace) appear frequently throughout the Old Testament (OT) prophets. They were vital messages for Israel during seasons of judgment, destruction, and exile, serving the purposes of letting God’s faithful know that judgment would not be the final word. In this series we have selected a key text on each theme from the OT Prophets and we will investigate its initial promise, its fulfillment in Christ, and its final outcome that is yet to be realized.
Weekly Titles
November 27 — Waiting for Hope: Even though the lot of humanity has continually increased over the centuries, every generation has seen its share of pain and sorrow, and every generation has turned its eyes to the future with hope that a day will come when those sorrows cease. With the birth of Jesus, that hope hit a crescendo in the spiritual realms, and with his life, death, and resurrection it began to find fulfillment. (Joel 3:9-21; Isa 51:1-16; Rom 8:22-25)
December 4 — Waiting for Love: The entire Bible is full of stories of God trying to pour out his love on sinful people who continue to remain separated from him. In Jesus, the road to restoration was paved, and the byproduct of that restoration has been the possibility for God’s love to be fully understood and realized by people all over the world. (Hos 11:1-11)
December 11 — Waiting for Joy: New gifts often inspire joy (although the nature of the gift may dictate exactly how long the joy lasts). What kind of joy should be elicited by a new salvation, or a new hope? What kinds of joy will be elicited by new heavens and a new earth, or the new and final victory of God? Those are joys that should last longer than that created by anything under your tree this year. (Isa 65:17-25; John 3:25-30)
December 18 — Waiting for Peace: Every year (maybe every day) people pray for peace on earth, or for world peace. But what about peace with God? That is something obtainable now through the Son, Jesus Christ. As for peace on earth? Well that too is obtainable, just not yet, and not without Jesus’ intervention. (Mic 4:1-5; John 14:27; Col 3:15-17)
December 24 (Christmas Eve) — Waiting for Victory: For centuries the OT expectation was that the Lord would someday come in power and establish his kingdom on Earth with his people at its center. And while that victory most definitely looked different than many expected, for centuries since, Christians have proclaimed that this victory arrived in the birth of Jesus. (Isa 40:1-31)
- 5:30 pm — Family friendly Christmas Worship
- 7:00 pm — Contemporary Worship with Candlelight Lord's Supper
- 11:00 pm — Traditional Worship with Candlelight Lord's Supper
December 25 — Still Waiting: The entire NT proclaims that in Jesus things long awaited for had finally arrived. But it also acknowledges that these things like hope, joy, love, and peace, are still only realized in part. Their full realization among humanity will only come about when Jesus’ returns. And so, with great expectations, the church continues to wait. (Zech 9:9-17; Acts 1:1-11)
