In 1824, Beethoven premiered his most famous symphony, the 9th Symphony. With the final movement called Ode to Joy. And when the symphony performed this incredible, complex, musically, spiritually deep. Music. Some describe as the greatest piece of music in the history of the world. It was met with a standing ovation and applause. But what is fascinating. Is that Beethoven had no idea. You see, he actually lost his hearing in his early to mid-forties. And what's incredible is that he wrote that entire symphony. Completely, when he was completely deaf at that point. He could not hear a note. It was completely silent, but from his training and his experience, God gave him those notes that he put together. And so when they performed that symphony, an ode to joy, that here 200 years later, still sung and played around the world, especially at Christmas time. And it's. OK. And so it was here, don't, don't compare the two. I know, I know I was pretty spot on, but um. But think about this for a moment. One of the world's most Played Listen to Sung Music pieces of all time was written in complete silence. The fact was, when the crowd stood and cheered, he didn't even know that one of the soloists had to tap him on the shoulder to turn around and see that the crowd was clapping. Why do I share that? Because sometimes life, it's hard to hear. The music, right? Maybe you're walking through a situation and you don't feel like you're hearing God. Maybe you're walking through and experiencing a difficulty that you can't understand. But what I wanna encourage you with today is that even if you can't hear the answers to prayer or hear God's voice, God's song is still true. God's song is still beautiful, and God's hope is available, not just to you, but to the world. His promise is still unfolding. And even in the supposed silence, God is actually composing something beautiful in your life. We're gonna talk about hope today. Our new series is entitled Follow the Star, and as the wise men follow the star and search for a savior, we're gonna take a look at how many people in this room and in our community find ourselves searching for God in a world filled with chaos. And so as we study the wise men, we're going to see a lot of commonalities between their lives and our lives and principles that transfer. And so today's message is entitled The Search for Hope. So we're gonna take a look at the search for hope today. Next week, we're gonna take a look and and discuss really the struggle for peace. Then in week 3 of our series, we're gonna talk about the joy of worship and the gifts that these wise men gave. And then in week 4, we're gonna talk about the love that leads us home and how God really changed their direction back uh home for the wise men after an encounter with Jesus. So if we're talking about hope, week 1 of Advent, we have to ask ourselves the question, what is hope? What is hope? See, there is a difference between cultural hope and Christian hope, right? As a sports fan, and watching college football yesterday, you, you are hoping that your team wins the game. And so for me, it's like, oh, my team won. OK, but the previous 4+ years, we didn't win, right? And so you're kind of hoping, you kind of want something to happen. But Christians have a hope that goes so much deeper than that. And studying the scriptures, there's a few Hebrew and Greek words that give us a better understanding of what actually is hope. There's a word, for example, named Yahal, which in Hebrew just simply means to wait for. And so Noah, when he was waiting on the Lord, was waiting for God. He was waiting for the waters to recede after God flooded the earth, and he was saved in an ark with his family. So yahal means to wait. But then there's another Hebrew word, kava, which sounds great because I've always wanted to be a ninja. So it's like kava, right? Like it kind of sounds like that. Um, I know there's a few guys in the room that are wanting to try it, but you can save that for later. Um. But cava, which means to wait, but to wait under tension. The root word for that is cav, where it also means cord. And so if you think of a rope that is tight, when you wait for either the rope to break or the release of tension for something that goes through. And so think about it where you are in. Maybe you are in traffic or in a waiting room or something like that, like you are waiting to be called back, or you're waiting to break through, or you're waiting for things to part to get the answer that you've longed for. You're waiting for the test score to come back. You are waiting for the results to come in. And so you are hopeful or expecting for a positive answer, but you don't know. And so what do you do in the in between time? Right? What do you do in the in between time? Because that in between time is filled with tension. Now, I think God is a funny way of connecting and speaking to people, and he had another way for me this morning even. And so I wake up this morning, every morning on Sunday mornings, I get up early, I grab my coffee, and I'm just kind of praying, going over the sermon, going through that. Well, my phone gets reminders, I don't really want to get reminders of photos that pop up of memories. And so this photo popped up on my phone this morning. And this was from 5 years ago, uh, when we were running church out of a comedy club in the middle of a pandemic, and it was actually speaking on the topic of hope. And so this literally was the topic, talking about the word kvah, where I was holding that and I almost snapped myself in the face with a bungee cord. And so I just found it so fascinating because as I prayed this morning, I was reflecting on just how good God truly has been. Because at that point in time, 5 years ago, we were in the middle of a pandemic. We were running church out of a bar. Uh, we didn't have a lot of finances in play. We didn't know if we were going to make it. We were only a year old. But we were trusting in, in the middle of the tension, not knowing what the answer would be, that God not only would our church survive, but thrive and grow, and for your glory, lead us to who we're supposed to be and where we're supposed to be. And so it's so cool for me to, to pray. Through and talk through this idea of how do you have hope in the tension and then get reminded of the exact moment when we were praying about hope in the tension, not knowing if our church was gonna survive, running church out of a bar to here we are 5 years later, just going to 3 services in a building of our own. Amen. I, we gotta get more comfortable with clapping, guys, cause like there's always someone to start. I appreciate it, but we're like, hey guys. Hey, we're good. Like, if you feel it, just let it go, OK? I mean, don't go the other way and like boo, that's not good. Um, but if you feel it, amen, clapping's OK. OK. And so, um, so what do you do in tension? I love this idea or description of hope because it means you can have hope even when things are not resolved. Hope is not just on the other side. Hope is in the middle. Right? You don't actually need hope in heaven. Do you know that? You don't need faith in heaven, which means hope is right now. Faith is for right now in this moment. So when you have a prayer that has gone unanswered, when you have a situation that has gone unresolved, when things look grim or feel overwhelmed or anxious or worried or doubt or stressed, or battling or in a valley, that's exactly the moment that you need hope, because to have Kava is that even in the tension, I wait on the Lord. Amen. Then you get to the New Testament and you get even another word that gives even deeper meaning to hope, which is Epi, which means to have hope based on joyful expectation on a person. And that person is Jesus. And so when you combine those words together, you, you come up with really a definition that I'm gonna share with you is this, is that hope is the confident expectation that God will do what he promised. It's not just that, well, I hope my team wins. It's like, no, I know God is gonna move. I don't know when, I don't know how, but God's gonna have the victory. I've seen it in the past, I know he's present with me now, and I'm gonna hang on to hope because hope is a person and his name is Jesus. Amen. So what does hope look like? Three places in the scripture we see this Psalm 39:7. That reads, and now, oh Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you. So God is our hope. And Commonly quoted verse, Jeremiah 29:11. Says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. I wish it said you will know the plans I have for you, right? But even when we don't know the plans, it's, we can take comfort in the fact that God has a plan, OK? What is it, the A Team where the guy goes, I love when a plan comes together, right? Uh, I love if God showed us what we were gonna walk through. But sometimes I think if God showed us everything we're gonna have to walk through, we would never take the journey in the first place, right? But instead, he promises that, no, I have a plan for you. And even in things like the Lord's Prayer, right? Give us this day our daily bread. Like I remember back in the comedy club, and, and that sounds weird to say as a pastor, but um as a church, we're praying like, God, it'd be cool if you gave us like monthly bread or like yearly bread, or like some type of inkling, here's the plan, right? Um, but we prayed and we trusted and we held on to hope, and, and God continues to move one step in front of the other, right? And mean us where we are. And so he says, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. See, for God, hope is a plan. Hope, hope is a plan. Hope is a person is God, and hope is a plan. He's like, I'm gonna give you a plan. I'm gonna give you hope. Paul, when he's writing to the church in Rome, he writes this prayer in Romans 15:13. He says, may the God of hope. May the God of all peace, may the God of joyful expectation fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. So what we see here is that our hope is in Jesus, and then our hope comes through the power of the Holy Spirit. So you can have hope in every situation because it's not based on your circumstance. It's based on your calling, and it's based on the spirit that is in this room, but it's also living inside of you for those who are believers. So it doesn't come from you, it comes from Jesus. That's why even in the worst of worst situations, you can hang on to hope because you have the same power that spoke the world into existence, that sustains the universe, and that conquered death through the power of the resurrection that now God used to launch the movement as the church. And so that is why we can hang on to hope, because hope is the name of Jesus and hope is the power of the Holy Spirit living within us. Amen. And Peter, right into a church, going through persecution in 1 Peter 1:3, he says this, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again into a living hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We have living hope, that means present day act of hope. Our hope is alive because Jesus is alive. And so your circumstance might look like you're heading towards death, but we hang on to hope because Jesus leads us towards life. And so if you're taking notes, I encourage you to write this down, that hope isn't something we feel, it's someone we follow. Cause hope is a, if hope is a feeling. There are days where you just won't feel it. Right? What do you do on those days? What do you do on those stormy days in life, the dark days in life, the low days, the valley points? The feeling isolated and alone. What do you do on those days? Right? If you've experienced where all hope was lost. Christians, we never have to say that. Cause hope is not on our circumstances, it's on our savior. And the power of the Spirit that's with with us. That's why people in scripture like the early church, or like when they put or get put in prison, right? They're, they're holding prayer services and worship times, and they're singing. Like how do you have hope? You're in prison? Well, because our hope is alive and our hope is in person, is in the person of Jesus, and he's alive. So if Jesus is alive, our hope is alive. It's not a feeling. It's not something we feel. It's someone we follow, and his name is Jesus. So what does hope look like in the Christmas story? We're gonna take a look at some interesting guys known as the Wise Men. So today we're gonna look at the first couple of verses of Matthew 2. Then tomorrow or not tomorrow, next Sunday, we're gonna take a look and compare the wise men to to Herod in their search for peace. Week 3, we're gonna take a look at the gifts that they brought for Jesus and how it leads to joy of worship, and then we're gonna talk about their journey back home with the love that leads us home. But for right now, go ahead and open up your Bibles to Matthew chapter 2, or look on the screen for these verses. Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem. Saying, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. Now, who exactly were the wise men? You know, we sing the song, We Three Kings of Orient are, uh, that's a fun song to sing and also not correct. Sorry. Because it says, now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem. They visited him. So the wise men were actually not in the manger, so sorry to bust up your nativity scenes. But they actually came a few months, maybe up to 2 years later, probably somewhere in between. And it says we 3 kings, they were actually not kings. Why do they call them that? Well, they were, they were seen as magi. Which are, are wise philosophers, uh, some in other areas of the world were sorcerer type people, that's, it's actually magi where we get our word magic. But it's also where we get our word magistrates, right? So like these ruling officials, so they, they studied religion, they studied philosophy, they studied the stars, astronomy, astrology, like all these things. And so they were kind of pagan people, but they were highly respected. And so kings wanted their approvals. So like when they think in the Old Testament, when someone needed a dream to be interpreted, they would call on the magi to kind of interpret. And so kings wanted their approval. Uh, they wanted direction from these people who were seemingly could interpret, but they were not seen as religious leaders, but they were religiously curious. And so, and the other thing that's here is that we always say that there's 3 of them, because there's 3 gifts that were highlighted. Uh, most likely there was way more than 3 wise men, because they would not travel in just a group of 3, maybe like 12, maybe 50, maybe up to like 75 or 100, again, probably somewhere in between. But there was a whole group of wise men are called magi that came from the east, and so it's probably somewhere like in Persia or Babylon or Arabia. And so they came to Jerusalem. So they studied the Jewish scriptures, and they studied other writings as well as studying the stars, so when something popped up, they were curious, and they followed. So who were these wise men? Well, they came from far away. They, they were curious in this. But if we can go back to verse two of Matthew, it says, where is he who has been born king of the Jews? Isn't it interesting that the first people to acknowledge Jesus is King is not the religious leaders. But these pagan magi. Now, I think it's important to understand that every gospel was written for the purpose of the writer. So, uh, they tell the same story, but from a different angle. So Matthew's angle from his gospel, the first three are Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called the s. Coptic Gospels. And so in Matthew's Anglo tax collector, a Jew, is writing to a Jewish audience to point out that Jesus is the king, fulfillment of the Old Testament. So repeatedly in his version of the gospel story, is this connection to, um, is this connection to really, here is Jesus, and here's fulfillment in the Old Testament. Here's Jesus' king, and here's how we missed it. I, I, one pastor just asserted, and I, it's not necessarily like proven, but it's kind of funny because that maybe, uh, maybe Matthew's account was, uh, Joseph's account, Jesus was born. And then, uh, and then Luke's account was from Mary. And so cause it's all her story and back forth and it's like the Christmas story where like Matthew's like, here's the genealogy, Jesus was born. Total guy's description of the Christmas story. But we have here anyway, and so he's writing to a Jewish audience to show them as king, to show Jesus as king. And so here is infant baby Jesus already, already acknowledged as the eternal living king of the Jews. And so they travel a long ways. We don't know if it's 40 days. We don't know if it's a couple months or 100 days, maybe it was a year. But that's really not the point, because otherwise he would tell us that. The point is that people far away from God found God sooner than the people that should have found God. Isn't that interesting? Because even in this, like the wise man coming over, is actually fulfillment of Isaiah chapter 9, verse 2, which says this, it says, in here, the people who walked in darkness have seen a great light, who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, and on them, the light was shone. So it's a description or picture of the wise man. And they come in, and then just a few verses later, in verse 6 is the Christmas verse that we are more familiar with, which is for to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Hope isn't something we feel, it's someone we follow. What we see from these wise men in this story today when it comes to hope is really 3 things. Number one We are challenged to see the light. To see the light, to notice where God is at work. We're gonna do a deeper dive into Herod next week. But for today, just isn't it interesting that here is Herod, a king. And all of his religious leaders who were there, see, Jerusalem's only about 5 or 6 miles from Bethlehem. And here the religious leaders and rulers of that day missed the star over top when these wise men, magi see it and travel hundreds of miles. And they come to Jerusalem. That's why they actually went to Jerusalem first, like, hey, where's the king of the Jews? So he was threatened by that. And he's like, wait a second. And then but after they talked to enough people, and they realized, oh no, the, the prophecy in in Micah 5 is like, oh, he's gonna be born in Bethlehem. And so they then they make the journey over to see Jesus. And at that point, he's in a house, he's not just in the, the stable at this point because he'd already been born. And so isn't it fascinating that the magi who didn't have all the answers, didn't have their life together, didn't have all the right things, wasn't politically correct or religiously correct, but they see the light, they, and they notice. I wonder how many of us are going through the Christmas season or holiday season, and we are so busy that we don't notice God. Right, I think Herod and the religious leaders were so busy living out religion that they missed the greater story of their savior. So the first group of people to worship him and acknowledge him as King was not the Jewish leaders, but these wise men who came from way far off. Do you notice where God is at work? Do you notice that God is present? Do you notice that God is in the room, that he's in the workplace, that he's in your relationship, that he's in your car as you drive, that he's present in this community bond and beyond. If you notice him, you'll see a difference. Secondly, we see here. Do you follow the light? Do you follow the light? They saw the star over Jerusalem, originally, ultimately it was over Bethlehem, and they didn't have certainty. They didn't know fully what it meant. They didn't have full clarity of everything and understood all and got all the ducks in a row, and maybe not ducks, maybe it was their camels in a row, I don't know. That, well, whatever you're supposed to have in a row at that time, they didn't have it, but they saw the light and they followed. You don't have to understand fully to obey immediately. That when you see the light, when you see God in your life, are you willing to take a step of obedience? Some of you have seen God in your life, and you're still hesitant to take a step. You're hesitant to have a conversation, you're hesitant to forgive, you're hesitant to share, you're hesitant to give of your resources, you're hesitant. To serve You get that nudge, hey, I want you to talk to that person. I want you to post. I want you to encourage. I want you to love, I want you to share, and we don't. When we take the example of the wise men, they didn't know where it would lead them, they didn't know the end result, they didn't know fully what would happen, but they saw the light and they followed the light, and they took a step of obedience. And now we study their story 2000 years later. What step of obedience do you need to take today? And finally, we see in here that we're called to worship the light. And the light is Jesus Christ. Right from the beginning of the Christmas story, we see these wise men come in and say, where is the king of the Jews? We have come to worship. We have come to give what we have to who matters most. Are you willing to honor Jesus in everything? Are you willing to surrender? Are you willing to express gratitude? Are you willing to sing praises to his name? May these wise men who didn't check the religious boxes that we would think they were far off from God. But when they saw the light, they followed the light. And then they worshiped And in that, they found hope. When we follow their example. Because at the end of the day, hope's not something we feel, it's someone we follow. We get another example. Not just 3 wise men today, we got 3 teens who are gonna lead by example today. I love that. They, they are declaring publicly their personal faith in Jesus Christ. And I wanna encourage you that if you're considering getting baptized, talk to me afterwards. Talk to one of our leaders, talk to Pastor Kurt. We're gonna do another baptism service here in on December 14th. But today, may we take their example of seeing the light, following the light, worshiping the light, and may we be reminded this week to go out and live our faith out, because we have hope, and that hope is alive, and that hope has a name, and that hope is in Jesus. Will you pray with me? Dear Heavenly Father, we pray for those in the room who are walking through difficult situations, who are experiencing tension of life right now. I pray that you would encourage them and meet them where they are. God, I pray that you would just lift them up that they can grab hold of hope, even when they don't hear the music, even when they don't see the future. May they place their hope in you. The joyful, confident expectation that you will do what you promised. As you came through for the wise men, God, may you come through for us today, and we, we celebrate and we lift up these students getting baptized, that we celebrate with them going public with their faith. May this be a moment that they will remember forever, and may they inspire those in this room and beyond to go public in their faith as well. We want to see you, we want to follow you. And ultimately, God, we want to worship you and be more like you, Jesus. It's in your son's name we pray. Amen.