Earlier this fall, five flamingos made national news when they were found hanging out on South Beach. Now being native to the Caribbean sometimes found in Central and South America. You would not think that five flamingos hanging on, hanging around on South Beach would make national news except they were found on South Beach, Port Washington and Wisconsin. So you can see the photo here that the residents woke up and found these flamingos hanging out by the lake. And what happened was that hurricane Adalia? Really? Or Adalia blew them so far off course that they found themselves in Wisconsin. Now it drew a crowd and people just checking things out and some bird experts and people taking photos and it was a lot of fun. But when people start getting nervous for the birds, well, one of the bird experts talked to the news and says it's ok because when the weather starts to turn, there is something innate in the birds that they know it's time to fly home. Now, I'm not sure what brought you here today, but I know in this holiday season it's easy to feel stressed out, busy, overwhelmed and maybe you find yourself in a place that you weren't expecting. Maybe you encountered your own storm that blew your life off course, while we celebrate and are excited for the holiday season. As we approach the end of the year, there might be people sitting in the rows or watching online or listening later wondering how did I get here? Maybe you encountered a storm in a relationship. Maybe you feel out of place in your finances, maybe you feel out of place in your health and something knocked you off course to where you feel like a flamingo in Wisconsin. But I'm here to tell you today that there is something inside of you being made in the image of God that as the weather turns in your life, there's a prompting in your soul saying come home, it's time to come home to church. It's time to come home to faith and it's time to come home to God. This morning's message is entitled, I wasn't expecting that. I wasn't expecting that. You know, you're going along life, you're flying along life and the storm blows you off course. And the next thing you know, you're a flamingo in Wisconsin. And you're wondering, what do I do now? Where do I go now? Well, today marks the beginning of advent and that word simply means a rival. And the heartbeat behind this in the Christian faith is that we take the four weekends, the four weeks leading up to Christmas and we prepare our hearts minds and lives for the arrival of Jesus on Christmas Day. And so what we wanna do over the next couple of weeks is that we're gonna take a look at the Christmas story, but we're gonna come at it from different angles so that we know what to expect. So if you're taking notes, go ahead and write this down that our expectations, influence, experience, expectations, influence experience. And if you go a step further, the gap between our expectations and experience is what we call frustration. All right. Come on, spouse is in the room, if you've had an expectation on a spouse and then your experience was something different. The size of the gap in between those two things describes the size of your frustration, right? And not just in relationships, it can be in life. I mean, sometimes you expect your team to throw the ball to your receivers instead of the other team like the Ohio State Buckeyes and you're expecting them to make the playoffs and they let us down next week, I'll talk about grief. Um But as we think through life, you place an expectation on a person on a job, on a thing, right? Once I get fill in the blank, I will have. But the problem is that if your expectation is on anything other than God, there is a good chance you're gonna end up this Christmas season. Feeling disappointed, you see expectation is often tied to this idea of hope. There's a few Hebrew and Greek words around the word hope that we read in scripture and let me share a couple of those with you. There's one yah ha which means to wait for like Noah was waiting for the floodwaters to go down a lot of times you see the word wait and hope used in scripture together. And then there's another word Kava. It sounds like a ninja chop. Ka. Uh That really is this idea that Kav means chord or tension. And so there the picture of hope is that you are expecting or, or feeling excited in the midst of tension. And so the idea of Kava is that when that tension is finally released or cut or let go to where you finally have this collective, then you get to the New Testament and there's this Greek word for hope. L peace that takes this e explanation of waiting or expectation and then attaches it to a person. And so in, in the New Testament, in Christianity, the early church, this idea of hope of all peace is found not in something but in someone and that someone specifically being Jesus. And so when you take all of those pictures put it together, here's a working definition I would give for hope is that hope is the confident expectation that God will do what he promised. It's a confident expectation that God will do what he promised. So if our ex expectations influence our experience, another way to look at that is that where you place your hope impacts your experience. This Christmas season, the late Tim Keller describe the difference between surface and source idols. A picture of that would be a, a surface idol might be drinking. It's some, it's addiction and it's difficult and it's challenging, but you wanna go deeper than that. So while d uh drinking might be someone's addiction. What you wanna try to address is the source. What is the, the disease or the symptom that is in causing you or leading you to drinking? So it is the surface visible action. But then there's the source need that you're trying to meet that then leads to that action. And so he describes that there are four main source idols that really challenge our view of Christianity. And I would say challenge our hope. So these four core source idols and, and an idol is really anything that you try to place in exchange of God. So some of these things are needs, but they're not needs at the highest priority, meaning that they are not your God. And so if you try to place a good thing, even in a God's spot, it's gonna lead to unmet expectations. The first source idol is comfort when you make decisions for the main purpose of you being comfortable. Uh I don't wanna get stretched. II, I need this, I need this for me, it's a very narcissistic picture. And in fact, the core need on all four of these things is s self and this idea of, of wanting for you. There's no I in team, but there's definitely an I in idol. And that at its core is pride. And in the middle of pride is I and when you're making decisions purely out of selfish motivation, you end up replacing God with one of these idols. So the first one is comfort. The second source, idol is approval. When you're trying to make decisions for the approval of the people around you, you see this with kids all the time, right? But it ends up with adults as well. If you've not had conversations yet with your teenagers, you will say, well, I wanna dress, I wanna be me that just so happens to also look like all of my friends, right? I remember uh you were my oldest a hard time about like the haircut and the pajama pants and the Crocs or slides or things and I was like, man that no one's wearing that and then I dropped them off at school and every single person had that way. And before we knock the current hairdo in high school where the hair is above the eyes or below the eyes, just look at your old yearbook. Ok? I don't think any of us were doing great. Um Way back when and so we make decisions and it extends into adulthood too. We make decisions and purchases and we say things so that we get approval from people. But when you make approval, an idol, you're always searching for something and that somebody can let you down. And so now you have placed your hope in control of other people and now your emotions, your whether you have a good day or bad day is completely dependent on what other people say about you and that's a dangerous way to live. The third source idol is one that many of us battle and it can appear productive. But what it is is actually the idol of control. I have to do something. Does anyone here cope with stress by really hyper focusing on something or someone? This situation in my life is out of control, but I can control my family, my kids, my spouse, my friends, I can control this work environment, this project, this house and we, and we get hyper fixated and we call it productivity. But what we're doing is that we're really stressed out on what we can control. And while we think we're in control as people, so much of our life is outside of that. And so if your hope, your expectation is always being in control, you're gonna be left feeling anxious a lot. The fourth one is a challenging one and that's one, the idol of power that I want power. I want prestige. It's my turn. But when you're seeking after power over other things, what happens is you trample on relationships along the way. And then when you get power, you think back to how people mistreated you and then you go and say, well, it's my turn now. But how did Jesus use power? Jesus came to the world. Humble meek, mild. He was fully God, fully powerful, all powerful. But his words were, I didn't come to be served. I came to serve. So you take all four of these idols and you exchange it for God and you realize that God actually provides all of these things. So if you place your hope and expectation in comfort, in approval, in control and power, you're going to be left wanting, hurting, longing for. But when you place your hope, your expectation in who Jesus is and what Jesus has done, you understand that in all circumstances, he gives you comfort and that as a child of God, you are fully approved as his workmanship created on purpose with a purpose. There's nothing you could do for Him to love you more, nothing you could do for Him to love you less. And then you realize that He is in control. And so in the middle of the storm, when you feel like a flamingo in Wisconsin, you understand that while you don't have it, God's got it and you can trust him to fight another day, which then means you don't need to seek after the power of this world because you have the power that defeated death itself and rose again from the grave. When you recognize that God created the world from nothing that God has the power to defeat sin and death itself. And he offers that to us, then you don't have to seek power because you already have it and it changes your expectations. What does the Bible say about hope? Let's take a look at some of these verses Psalm 39 7 and now O Lord for what do I wait? My hope is in you. A lot of times you see this word wait and hope used and connected. And I love that picture because picture a waiter at a restaurant. What does a waiter do serves? And that is a great picture that when we wait on the Lord waiting on the Lord does not mean just like I'm waiting on the Lord just standing here. It's, you know what God instead of focusing on what I don't know. I'm gonna trust you with that and I'm gonna focus on obeying what I do know and I'm gonna serve the people that are around me while I wait for the answer that only you can give. So he has this picture of hope. And then I want to share three different images that we see from three different passages that all apply to hope. The first one is a springboard. This comes from Colossians chapter one verses four and five. Paul's writing to the church in Colossus. And he writes these words because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love you have for all of God's people, the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel. If you ever go to a public pool, there are three people kinds of people. There is the person that sits on the side with or without a drink that never gets in the water. There is the person that just dips their toes in, right? And then there is the person that just goes full on cannonball, right? They're just jumping in reckless abandon. Po what we're invited to do as Christians off the springboard of hope is just to go full on can ball into the deep end of the Christian faith. You see the reason we have faith in God and love for people is because it is based in the expectation, in the confidence and promise and hope that is Jesus because we have Jesus, we can love God and love others. When you recognize that Jesus is all that you have, you realize that Jesus is all that you need and that if you have hope, you got enough and so go cannonball, jump off that springboard of hope into whatever situation that you're facing. Understanding that hope gives us the ability to jump and to go for it and go all in on faith and the love. But then second, we have this picture of a living faith. First Peter 13 says, blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. When you think through this idea of hope it is in fact alive, we don't just study an old ancient book, but the living word of God talking about the risen and living Savior Jesus, because Jesus is alive, the church is alive and because the church is alive and Jesus is alive, we are alive. Now, my kids play club sports and recently my middle carter just they jumped into a league where we just had to turn in this weekend birth certificates to prove your age to play in this league, which I actually am all for because there have been some other tournaments when we show up with these kids. And I swear I parked next to one of the kids, my son was supposed to play against, right? He had a full grown beard. It's like I'm excited for the game today. Like I are you really 11? I don't know. And so I am actually good with the idea of turning in a birth certificate because the purpose of a birth certificate is the show identity, right? It's a show where you were born and your age. Now, what you don't need a birth certificate for is to prove that someone is alive, right? You don't have a paramedic coming on to a scene when someone is in trouble going quick, find the person's birth certificate. What are they looking for? Signs of life? A pulse breathing. Why do I say all this? I think too many Christians and even too many churches are just simply pointing back to a birth certificate. Let's say I I prayed a prayer when I was seven, right? They're holding up their marriage license. Hey, John, how's your marriage? December 16th 2006, which it is important to know the date by the way. But if someone asked me, how is my marriage going? And I just point back to a date that doesn't show signs of life. And church as Christians, we have been giving, given a living hope, meaning that we should be alive. The church should be the most alive family and organization in the world where there is daily and weekly examples of showing and sharing the love of Christ with the community around us. That is why at our church, we think too many people focus on what they're against and we believe that God is for you, which means we are for you and we can go out and be for our community. Are you for your family for your relationship, for your team, for your school, for your business to where you can walk in and every time you walk in, you bring with you life. Jesus did not come. And in John 14 6 say I am the way the truth and the life. He did not come to give us life and life abundantly as it says in John 1010, he didn't do all of these things to give us a living hope so that we can sit on the sideline and go. Hm Well, I pray the prayer at church attendance. Look at this paper II, I did this. Look at this list. I did no church. We are alive and our hope is alive, which means that even in your darkest hour, even when you feel most alone, even when you feel most lost hope is still alive. So we have hope as a springboard. We see hope as a living hope. But third, I want us to see hope as an anchor, Hebrews 619. Since we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain. I love that hope is an anchor, but it's not anchored on earth, it's anchored in heaven so that whatever storm you are walking through, you are guaranteed safe passage home because the anchor holds, you might feel like a flamingo in Wisconsin. But the anchor holds. Here's another way to think of it that hope in Christ saves us from our past, sustains us in our present and then secures us in our future. There is no sin so deep that God's love is not deeper still. Oh, I'm too far gone. I'm too far lost. I've made too many mistakes. I have been hurt. I have hurt others. God offers you hope he saves us from our past, but then he sustains us in our future, whatever you're walking through right now. Do you understand that you have hope that is alive, that it is not based on your situation or your circumstance? But it's based your expectation and confidence is on Jesus who made you and who saves you and who sustains you. So when you place your expectation, not on your situation, but on your savior, you can trust that he's gonna see you through and that even if you're praying and or praying for healing, right? And you don't, you don't get the healing that you're looking for. You don't get the reconciliation that you're looking for. You can, you might ultimately one day you will with Jesus in heaven because the anchor will hold. That's why in persecution, the church actually spreads. The church grows that every country, every nation, every ruler that tried to squash Christianity at some point ceased to exist. And at the end of it, Christianity actually ended up larger than ever before. Why? Because you can't kill hope. When hope killed death itself, you can't kill the thing that defeated death. Does that make sense? So, whatever the world throws at, you can't touch you when you have hope, specifically the hope of Jesus in your life. So then the question we have to ask ourselves is where should we place our expectations and hope this Christmas, where should we place it? See all of this is really an intro into our series. But I want to jump into the Christmas story and I want you to see that hope has a home and it's available to everyone. Luke chapter two verse eight and in the same region where the shepherds were out, uh there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. The Christmas story. Luke chapter two, Jesus is born Mary and Joseph Little Manger Nativity scene. It's awesome. The first people to get the good news are shepherds. Now, what's interesting about that is that shepherds themselves were the blue collar overlook workers in the society in the Old Testament. David was the youngest sibling and as prophet Samuel came to David's father and said, line up all your sons because one of them is gonna be king. And so his father lines up all of his sons, but he didn't line up David. Why? Because he was just a little shepherd boy. So shepherds were overlooked. Their testimonies were not valid in court. Hang on to that thought for a moment. We're gonna come back to that one. Much of what they did went hidden and unseen. I wonder how many people feel hidden and unseen. Today, you are working your butt off. You are up at night with the kiddos. You are working the night shift. You are grinding through some responsibilities and no one is seeing it and you're not seeing it and you're just in this endless cycle and routine of work, sleep, work, sleep and it just feels heavy and it just, you just feel stuck. And whether it's raising a kid or running a business or seeking after your dreams and falling short or just wherever you find yourself, it's easy to feel lost and alone. But yet notice that in the tiny little town of Bethlehem in the field next to Bethlehem in the middle of the night, these weren't even the day shepherds. This was the night shift crew and we know no one trusts the night shift crew of any job. They're not even the starters of the shepherds. And if they are and they're working these full day shift, then they're exhausted. If they are right recently, went down to a basketball game this last week down to Tucson. And if you've ever made the drive from Tucson to Phoenix in the middle of the night, there is nothing. And I remember actually praying through the sermon. I was like, God, what was it like to be the Shepherds? And then I'm driving, I look around like, oh just middle of nowhere, right? This is not a great marketing strategy. By the way, if you're gonna release a product, like the Shepherds did not sign an nil deal like in college athletes with ad one program, right? For their name, image and likeness, like they're not running this marketing campaign. They're not like a social influencer but yet it was there that the angel comes check this out. Verse nine, an angel Lord appeared to them in the glory of the Lord showing around them and they were filled with great fear. And the angel said to them fear, not for behold, I bring you good news of great joy. That will be for all the people for unto you is born this day in the city of David, a savior who is Christ, the Lord. Yeah, our expectations influence experience. And what I can tell you is that I don't think the shepherds had a ton of expectations at that time. And so they weren't expecting that, but in the middle of a daily work routine routine that nobody saw, nobody knew, nobody celebrated. God saw God sees and came to and while they didn't go to hope, hope came to them and said, you are going to be the first people I tell. So how did the shepherds respond? How did the shepherds respond? Verse 15, it says that when the angels went away from them into heaven, the shepherds said to one another. Let us go over to Bethlehem and see this thing that had happened. I love that. You know they're not educated. I mean, here's this great prophecy of all the Old Testament, all these prophecies that were made of the coming of the savior of the world. And you present it to the shepherds and they're like, hey, we should go see this thing. But he says which the Lord has made known to us and they went with Haste and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger. And when they saw it, they made known the saying that had been told them concerning this child and all who heard it, wondered at what the shepherds had told them. But Mary treasured up all things pondering them in her heart and I want to pause there for a second. I know that's like the biblical passage and, and, and it's, and you know, it's of God, you got to think a little bit. If you're merry, you're like, that's who you're sending me. You're carrying the savior of the world and you already don't give me a hospital or a home. I'm in a stable. So, ok, but God's gonna send me help, right? God's gonna send me help and the first people to show up are not doctors and nurses but shepherds and you know, they got some late night stank on them and think about this. Ok, with shepherds come what she what was baby Jesus in a manger? I bet there were some sheep that tried to eat baby Jesus. But yet they came, the unexpected unlikely people from the word of God, they came to which Mary and Joseph said, wow, this could only be God and Mary worshiped and the people worshiped and the shepherds worshiped and then notice what happens in verse 20 the shepherds returned glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen as it had been told to them. How did the shepherds respond to? Hope? I think they did three things. Number one, the shepherds received, hope they received hope. They heard the message of the good news of the coming of Jesus. And they responded by going, how many people have received the hope of Jesus into their lives? It's not enough to hear it. We have to receive it and believe it into our lives. The second thing they did was they shared, they told everybody, remember what I I just shared a few minutes ago, their testimonies weren't even valid in court. These uneducated guys that were like, hey, let's go see this thing wouldn't stop talking. Why? Because their lives had been changed. That if you have received the hope, have you shared it? Have you shared this good news with others that it's also available to them? Because if it's available to the shepherds, it's available to you and to me, do we share it and then the last thing here is that they worshiped, isn't it interesting that they went back to those same fields? You know, God will change your life. God will give you a new perspective, change your heart. Sometimes your situation doesn't change, right? But when you have hope, you understand that while your situation might not change, you will be forever changed. And think about this for the rest of their lives, the shepherds could share that. They saw Jesus first. That when Jesus grew 30 years later, began his ministries, performed all those miracles, died on the cross rose again from the grave, the church began, they could say, hey, we saw it first and they worshiped. And I think God's calling us to do the same. When you place your expectation and hope in Jesus, it will solidify your experience that can only be found in Him. Will you pray with me, dear heavenly Father as we get ready to take communion as a church family? May we remember that our hope saves us from our past, sustains us in our present and secures us for the future that our expectation. This season is not in getting our home perfect and not in getting our finances perfect. It's not about ha having the best health or the best relationships, but our hope is squarely found in you that through you, we have our comfort. We have our approval, God, we, you have the control and we have the power to our faith in you. So thank you for giving us this hope. We receive it. Now we share it with others God and we worship you always, it's here. So and we pray amen.