Speaker: Gary Peters

Passage: Luke 2

WHEN HOPE IS DEFERRED

I’m excited about what I want to share with you today. This is the first week of Advent, the expectation of the Lord’s coming, but I think it means something different to us, of course. If you were at the turn of the first century, think about the fact that there’s been four hundred years between Malachi and Matthew. Four hundred years. 

To put it in perspective, the Pilgrims landed in 1620, we just celebrated the four hundred and fifth Thanksgiving. Think about all the things that have happened in four hundred and five years. For the Romans, major events like three world powers ruled the land. World powers. The Persians, the end of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and the Greeks. And then on the hills of the Greeks came the Romans. 

Think about how God, sovereignly, is moving, and yet they’re called the silent years. The Maccabees, the restoration of Israel to some power, they threw off the Roman oppressors, rededicated the Temple, and out of that, we have the celebration of Hanukkah. 

The first Jewish Roman war and the fall of Masada, the rise of the sects of the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Essenes, and the Sanhedrin all came out of this four-hundred-year period. So much happened during these silent years between the canonization of the Old Testament in Malachi and the New Testament in Matthew. 

But I venture to say yet God was not silent. Just like in our own life, when He seems silent, He’s not silent. He is still sovereign, and He’s in control of world affairs, and He still speaks to His people. 

SIMEON

Let’s look at two people that He was speaking to in the last century of this, Hannah and Simeon, in Luke 2. Jesus is just a little over a week old, eight days. “Eight days later, when the baby was circumcised…” According to Jewish law, they had to be circumcised on the eighth day. They’ve proven medically that’s the best time to do it, which is what I was told. God knows all things, even when we don’t. 

“And he was named Jesus, the name given to him by the angel even before he was conceived.” God named you before you were born. God knows everything about you before you were born. You were formed in your mother’s womb. God knew you. 

“And then it was time for their purification offering, as required by the law of Moses after the birth of a child; so his parents took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” The word dedicate means to set next to. 

How many parents in this building, time and time again, have set your children next to the Lord? God, they’re Yours. I’m just a steward. Lord, I remind You I gave them to You. I know none of you have done that, but I’ve done it with my kids and grandkids. And it doesn’t even mean they’re rebellious. It just means, God, You know what they’re going to be facing. I give them to You. 

“The law says, ‘If a woman’s firstborn is a boy, he must be dedicated to the Lord.’ So they offered the sacrifice required in the law of the Lord– either a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons.” 

And we know by this that Mary and Joseph didn’t have a lot of money. Leviticus 12:8 says, “If a woman cannot afford to bring a lamb, she must bring two turtle doves and two young pigeons. One will be for the burnt offering and the other for the purification offering.” 

One for the burnt offering of dedicating our lives to the Lord. The second one is the purification because of the blood that was spilt when the baby was born. “The priest will sacrifice them to purify her, and she will be ceremonially clean.” 

“And there was at that time–” this same eighth day that his parents are delivering Jesus to the priest to be circumcised and to present this offering for ceremonial cleansing and dedication– “There was a man in Jerusalem named Simeon.” 

His name means God has heard. I think that’s interesting. God has heard, and yet God is silent. “He was a righteous and devout man and was eagerly awaiting for the Messiah to come and rescue Israel.” 

I said in all three gatherings, if the Scripture says he was righteous and devout, guess what? He was righteous and devout. But what a statement. How many of us want that kind of epithet on our tombstone? Here lies Gary Peters– of course, I’ll be in an urn– Here lies Gary Peters, someone who was righteous and devout. What an incredible statement. I wish that people would see us and that we would really have righteous acts and be devoted to the Lord. 

“Now there was a man,” the NIV says, “In Jerusalem called Simeon. He was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation, which is the comfort and peace of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was on him and had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen the Lord’s Messiah.” 

My question is, how many others had the same promise, but weren’t Simeon, and died? Hope doesn’t mean it always comes to pass. Hope means you know the hope giver, the promise giver. 

And that day, just by circumstance, by the sovereignty of God that day, the Spirit led him to the Temple. So, when Mary and Joseph came to present the baby to the Lord, as the law required, Simeon was there. 

And I shared this in all three gatherings: I see this as like him, literally, kind of invading their space and taking the baby. Doesn’t say he asks permission. He just grabs this child. Now in today’s society, the firstborn, you glove up, you gown up, you mask up, you put goggles on before you can touch the sacred child. 

My daughter had four, and she says by the fourth one, you’re handing them in the grocery line, going, Here, can you hold this baby while I look for coupons in my purse? But I just find it interesting that Simeon just comes, grabs the child, and starts prophesying. 

“He took the child in his arms and he praised God, saying, ‘O Sovereign Lord, now let your servant die in peace, as you promised. I have seen your salvation for which you have prepared for all people.’” 

God’s silent, but He’s in preparation. “‘He is the light to reveal God to the nations, and he is the glory of your people Israel!’ Jesus’ parents were amazed at what was being said about him. Then Simeon blessed them, and turned to Mary, the baby’s mother, ‘This child is destined (solemnly appointed) to cause many in Israel to fall.'” 

Isn’t that encouraging? Your baby’s going to cause many to fall, but He’s also going to bring encouragement to many. “‘And he will be a joy to many others. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him. As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed.’” 

When God shows up, people’s hearts are revealed. That’s why people avoid hanging out with God unless they want their heart revealed. If you’re here today, guess what? You’re saying, God, I want my heart revealed. That should both terrify us and also comfort us, but we should be able to say that to the Lord. 

And then he turns to Mary and says, “‘A sword will pierce your very soul.’” I personally believe Mary probably held on to this prophecy for thirty-three years, not knowing what it meant completely. But when Jesus was hanging on the cross, when she saw the beatings He took, I guarantee she remembered the prophetic word of Simeon. 

ANNA

And at that same time, there was a woman named Anna. Her name means kindness or favor or grace. It means to literally stoop down and show favor to someone. She’s a prophetess. For all of you Reformed theology people out there, women have a place in ministry. She’s part of the five-fold ministry of God. 

He’s given these gifts to the church: apostle, prophet, pastor, teacher, evangelist. And she’s called a prophetess, not by me, but by the Holy Spirit in sacred text. So, if you have a problem with it, it’s God’s problem with you, and not the church’s. Fair enough? Not in my notes, said it in all three gatherings because I think it needs to be said. Women, you have a place in the ministry, in the body of Christ. There’s a promise for you. 

“She was also there in the Temple. She was a daughter of Phanyel,” which means the face of God, “From the tribe of Asher, and she was very old. Her husband died when they had only been married seven years.” And she was now eighty-four. 

Some translations say she had been widowed eighty-four years. The point is, it’s a long time. “And day and night, she stayed in the Temple, worshiping God with fasting and prayer.” Two people dedicated to God, hearing God in silent times, hearing God when the voice of the Lord is not being spoken to others. There’s no prophetic word coming forth from Scripture. They’re having to hold on to this prophetic word. 

“And she came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God.” Think it’s interesting, both of them had the same reaction when they saw the Christ Child. Just like you and I should have when we’re encountering God, our first thing should be on our face before Him, praising Him. 

She came alongside as Simeon was talking to them, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone, everyone, everyone who had the same spirit they had. Same expectation, different voice from God. Same expectation. 

They were hearing God that something was going to happen. They were believing God this last century, of these four hundred years. “And when they returned, the child grew up healthy and strong, and he was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was on him.” 

HOW DO WE WAIT WITH EXPECTANT HOPE?

The question I want to propose today to us, this first Sunday of Advent is: how do we wait in expected hope when our faith is met by circumstances like delay, oppression, and even death? 

There are those of you in this room that have believed God for somebody’s healing, and they died. Does that mean you believe wrong? Or do you believe in a sovereign God to do something, and He chose to work another way? 

That theological question will never be answered. But in hope. Abraham hoped, believing in hope. Despite of hope, he believed in hope. Proverbs 13:12 says, “Hope deferred makes a heart sick, but a desire fulfilled or realized is the tree of life.” 

Hope is the expectation, the waiting. The first Sunday of Advent is the Sunday of hope. We hope that Jesus is going to do some things. We hope He’s going to appear. We hope Isaiah’s prophecies are correct. We hope that David’s prophecies in the Psalms are going to be true. We hope, and we rest in the assurance that it’s going to happen. 

Deferred means to be drawn out, to sow and wait. Told you that I was a farm boy from Illinois. We’ll get into it in a minute because I’m going to use a couple illustrations, but I never saw farmers digging in the dirt to make sure seeds were germinating. 

And yet, I’m constantly digging in the promise of God to make sure I heard God okay, and when I’ve heard God okay, it should be, I don’t need to dig in the soil, the seed’s going to germinate. Because when you dig up a germinated seed, it dies. It has to be replanted.

And it says you’re sick. I watched a short devotional by Bill Johnson, and he was talking about at the point of deferred hope, we have the choice of either getting sick or pressing in. You are vulnerable in a time of waiting. It’s time to cultivate relationship. You have to make right choices. You have to watch your tongue. You have to realize that we can make agreements with the enemy during times of waiting. 

Disappointment will either take you to the comforter or to bitterness. Anybody in here ever been to either place? I’d rather go to the comforter. A lot of people are bitter because they have their hope deferred because they put their hope in the promise rather than the promise giver. 

But a desire, a longing, a delight, what we wish for, is when it’s fulfilled, when it comes along, when it’s attainable, when it’s abiding in our life, is a tree of life. I think it’s so interesting that in the Book of Genesis and Revelation, mentions the tree of life, and this time in Proverbs, it mentions the tree of life. And it says, when we have longings fulfilled, it’s a tree of life to us. 

I think it’s very interesting that the first time it’s used in Revelations 2, that it’s talking to the church in Ephesus, Get back to your first love, and if you do, I’ll plant a tree of life. At the end of the book, it talks about the river of God coming out of the Temple of God, the Throne of God, and the tree of life is going to be planted by the river of God. And the leaves will be healing to the nations. 

WAITING MATURES FAITH

How do we wait in expected hope when our faith is met with circumstances like delay, opposition, and even death? The first thing is this: realize that waiting is an important aspect of maturing faith. Anybody want to hear another teaching today? I’m serious. This is really encouraging. It’s encouraging, but it’s sometimes discouraging. 

I once read maturing faith is understanding the nearness of God, even when God is silent. I heard Corrie Ten Boom when I was like sixteen, seventeen years old. Hadn’t been saved very long. She was put in a concentration camp because her family of Christians saved Jews from the Holocaust and got caught hiding Jews in their home. 

And she said this statement: is the Lord able to put you in the most trying of circumstances with no voice from Him and no complaint from you? Is God able to be silent in our life? As a sixteen-year-old, I’m going, No clue what that means, but yes, I’ll probably do it. Now that I’m almost seventy, it’s like, I don’t know if I like that quote. 

No explanation of God’s and no complaint of yours. Longing, waiting, anticipating, receiving, your hope is tested and delayed. Abraham waited twenty-five years for Isaac to be born. Moses waited forty years, and then still didn’t get to enter the Promised Land. 

Joseph waited thirteen years in prison for crimes that he never committed. David waited twenty years from the time he was promised and anointed king until he saw the complete kingdom in Jerusalem. Jesus had eighteen silent years that we don’t know what happened, yet we know God was speaking. 

You will develop an understanding that God has always actively engaged, especially in times of waiting, sovereignly speaking, arranging, moving. Three empires in those four hundred years. God goes, Up Persians, up Greeks, oh, now the Romans. 

When I have people tell me, This is the worst time in world history, I say to them all the time, You don’t understand world history. There’s been a lot worse times in world history than we live in. I’m not saying they’re easy times, I’m just saying, what a joke to think this is the worst it’s ever been. 

Try to live under the Romans. Try to live under the Persians. You get castrated as a fourteen-year-old boy and drug to a city you didn’t want to live in, and you’re called Daniel. That’s encouraging. That’s awesome. Not really. 

RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD

The second thing is realize there’s no substitute for developing a relationship with God. Hope will continue if it’s properly nurtured. Waiting makes the promise of God or God Himself feel distant, but if I’m in constant relationship with Him, I have an awareness of His abiding presence. 

I love the fact that it says Simeon was righteous and devout. Devout means he was pressing in. Day and night, Anna came. Devotion, careful respect to religious duties, the idea of consistency, the idea of habitual. The need to cultivate. 

I’m going to take you on a journey. I grew up as a farm boy in Illinois. My grandfather had a small farm. Now, they’re giant farms with mega owners, corporations, but this was a small farm. He probably farmed a couple hundred acres. 

I remember as a kid, some of the things I’m going to talk to you about, there are two principles before heavily chemicalized fertilization and giant corporate farms, the farming process when I grew up in the sixties and seventies that I saw, the first is the principle of fallow ground. 

Hosea 10:12 says, “Sow for yourselves with a view of righteousness.” What does that mean? Keep God’s favor on your life. You’re righteous because He’s righteous. “Sow with a view of righteousness; reap in accordance with kindness.” 

Wouldn’t it be awesome if the church was kind? And I’m not talking about your fellow Christian believer, I’m talking about pagans that treat you like pagans. I’ve said it a million times: when pagans act like pagans, they’re pagans. What’s really troubling is when Christians act like pagans. 

But be kind. “Harvest in accordance with kindness. Break up your fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord until he comes and reigns righteousness on you.” Complete farming term here. You realize how dependent the world is upon the goodness of God? Not Mother Nature, but the goodness of God? He could have a ten-year drought facing the globe, and millions, billions would perish. All it takes is withholding rain. 

Fallow ground is that which was once plowed. My grandfather would plow with, if he was really lucky, with a six-bottom plow, normally four. Now they have like twenty-four. And he would plow the ground in the fall, turning up the previous year’s crop to let it sit over the winter and start to rot so that it could put nutrients back in the soil. 

And the fallow ground was that which, if it was tilled over and sat all winter until the next spring, would get hard and crusty, and was unfit. Even though it was beginning the process, it was unfit for cultivation. 

I saw this picture, I had to put it up because this is the very thing that my grandfather had. I can see where it was sitting in his field, along the fence row in the pasture. Does anybody know what that is? It’s a harrow or a spring tooth. And I literally saw my grandfather sitting on that nasty old metal tractor seat with the two levers. 

I had somebody come up to me after the first gathering and said it was character testing levers because it would say how deep it needed to go in the soil. And what the harrow did, or spring tooth, as my grandfather called it. It’s not spring tooth because they used it in the spring, it’s spring tooth because those curved areas are loaded springs, and the more pressure you put on them, the deeper they would dig. 

The purpose of the spring tooth is fourfold: it loosened the soil, it broke up clods, it leveled the ground, and it prepared the seed bed. In your times of waiting, church, I promise you, God is loosening things in your heart. He’s breaking up some clods. You know, my wife could tell you sometimes I’m a clod. I really am. I agree with Pastor Greg, he’s not a good human being without Jesus, and neither am I. 

And then it levels the ground. When we wait on the Lord, what happens is He not only gives us the seed that we’re believing for, He plants new seeds on top of the seed, so that He can bring forth a greater harvest. 

That’s the purpose of what God is doing in the waiting. He’s preparing hearts. He’s preparing your heart. He’s preparing your neighbor’s heart. He’s preparing our nation’s heart. He’s preparing the world’s heart. By the way, God’s bigger than America. Thank you. 

LEARNING HIS NATURE

The third understanding is this: that as you spend time with God, you will learn His nature, character, and faithfulness. How many like contagious Christians? People that you’re around, when you’re done talking to them, it’s just like you feel refreshed, like a breath of fresh air? It’s like being watered when it’s dusty and dry. I love people that have been with Jesus because they’re contagious. Are you contagious? Couldn’t have said that five years ago. 

Hebrews 10:36 says, “They had patient endurance.” That’s a double whammy because they basically mean the same thing. It means patience patience or endurance endurance. Same Greek word. Means to come under. 

The second principle of the ground is not only the fallow ground, but it’s the resting ground. In the Levitical law, Israel had to set aside portions of their land in rest for a year every seven years, and in the year of Jubilee, all of the land. 

What’s the purpose? Because if you overplant something, it’ll take all the nutrients away. This is before fertilization and insecticides and pesticides. This is a way they farm for centuries and centuries and centuries, thousands of years. God instituted it. 

And I can remember fall ground on the farm, like, Why aren’t we planting that? Because it needs to rest. Why does it need to rest? Because you’ll get a bigger crop when you let it rest. God is letting you rest so that you’ll get a bigger crop. 

You’re freaking out, like, What is happening? God’s silent. Nothing’s happening. The promise that I got twenty years ago, I’m still holding on to, and there’s no fulfillment of the promise. God is saying, I’m producing a greater harvest in your life. 

It’d be so much easier if you had sex, got pregnant, baby’s born the next day. Especially you ladies that carry the child and went through childbirth. It’s so much easier, like come to Jesus, everything’s going to be awesome. You’ll never have a problem. You’ll just coast your way into Heaven. That’s why I saved you. 

No. Come to Jesus, and sometimes wait on a promise for twenty or thirty years, sometimes wait a lifetime, and you die in the promise. Read Hebrews chapter 11. Some of them died holding on to the promise. And as I’ve said it a million times, when they died holding on to the promise, guess who they got? The promise. 

The Sabbath principle of letting something rest. The Sabbath principle of rotating crops. I can remember my grandfather planting alfalfa, getting four or five years out of it, or maybe three or four, couple cuttings a year in Illinois because it got colder. Back in California, they literally cut it five times a year, and then he’d go and plow the alfalfa over. 

I’m like, That’s crazy. You just ruined the crop. No, I’m putting nitrogen back in the soil. And if you know anything about horticulture, nitrogen causes things to grow fast and green up. We all need nitrogen in our hearts. 

In times of inactivity, it produces an understanding of who God is and what He can do in me, not what He can do for me. Because the most important thing, and what God does many times, is He gives us a promise, it’s delayed because He wants us to seek the promise giver, not the promise. I know people’s whole lives are based on a promise they’ve been given, but they forgot the promise giver. 

What are you holding on to? God’s presence, my friend, is the promise. All that God has promised– salvation, healing, deliverance, prosperity– everything that you believe God for is found in Him. 

Some questions in closing: where are you in the process of fulfillment? Are you at the beginning? Are you in the middle? Are you towards the end? You say, How do I know, Pastor? My point exactly. 

But where are you? Have you gone back to the promise? There’s times in my life I’ve opened the Scripture and said, God, this is what you promised me. Lord, You promised, it’s right here. You promised me this. You said You were going to do this, Lord, it’s not about me, it’s about You. 

What are you doing to cultivate the relationship with the promise giver? Do you have consistent daily time with Jesus? Consistency, and I’m not talking about trying to beat you up with a guilt trip. If my wife and I never talk, guess what? Our relationship stinks. It’s not any good. We’re roommates. We’re not husband and wife, we’re not lovers, we’re roommates. I don’t want a roommate. 

What is the condition of the ground of your heart? Does it need to be broken up, or does it need to rest? And sometimes those two things come simultaneously in my life. David says this, I love it, he says, “Unite my heart to fear your name.” Take all the fragments of who I am, unite my heart, God, and remind me that You’re my constant companion. Fear Your name. 

There’s going to be prayer team members up at the front if you need prayer this morning. Will you pray with me? Father God, thank You for Your faithfulness to us. Thank You that no matter where we’re at in the process, God, we have the Advent. We have an expectation of hope. God, even the Second Coming is called the blessed hope. 

So, Lord, I thank You for Your faithfulness to us. God, wherever we are at in this process, You know what each person is facing, where each person is at, God, I pray drop new faith, new hope, new encouragement in their heart. Thank You that You’re a God that hears. You’re a God that answers, You’re a God that moves. In Jesus’ name, amen.