Hope is Found in the Strangest of Places: What's Your Status?

Hope is Found in the Strangest Places - Christmas 2013, 22nd Dec, morning.

We live in a world that is influenced by by social networking - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.  Even if you are not part of this revolution you will be affected by it.  And these social networking sites are not going away even if some choose to ignore them.  Facebook has 1.11 billion users (according to their stats on 17th Dec 13).  Twitter has 554,750,000 users according to their stats.

That’s a lot of people who are spending their lives in the virtual world f the internet.

Facebook is the most popular site.  On it you invite people to be your friends.  You can update your ‘status’ to show your friends what you have been doing.  Most people put boring things on like what they’ve had to eat, where they are, who they are with.

You can also 'unfriend' people too.

It is also used for campaigns, petitions and fund raising.  Like anything it can be used for good an bad.

I wonder if Mary and Joseph had Facebook what it would have read like: show video clip.

The bizarre thing about these networking sites is that we are living in the generation that doesn't understand relationship anymore - most friendships happen in a virtual world; I’ve seen people argue on Facebook, marriages break up on it, families wrecked on publicly announce on it.

it seems that people are content to share very personal information with their ‘friends’ that we might have only shared with a few folks a decade ago.  It seems that people lose their natural filters of what is appropriate on these sites.

What does this have to do with hope in the strangest of places?  People are looking for relationship in the place that does not guarantee it although it uses the language of relationship - friend.

Christmas reminds us that we are born for relationship.

1. A Mother’s Story:

One of the central characters at Christmas is Mary.  We don’t venerate her or pray to her as some might.  She is a special persons though.  

Special for her obedience

Luke 1: 38:‘I am the Lord’s servant,’ Mary answered. ‘May your word to me be fulfilled.’ 

Special for her belief

Luke 1: 45: Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfil his promises to her!’

Special because of her love for God

Luke 1: 47-48: And Mary said: ‘My soul glorifies the Lord

and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.

Actually it makes you think that if we would just obey a little more, believe a little note and worship a little more that God would be able to do amazingly more than we ask or imagine!

2. A Friend’s Story:

There is something amazingly dependable about the friendship of Jesus.  He sticks with us. 

Proverbs 18:24: One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

We often hint at a friend is for us when they tell us what we want to hear.  That’s not friendship.  Friendship is supporting one another but also flagging up warning signals when our lives start to go off track.  After all if we cannot trust that our friends are telling us things for our own good who can we trust?

So often we want the Jesus of our imagination, not the Jesus who is Lord!

He is the friend who is the Saviour:

John 15: 13: Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 

We like the idea of Jesus the Saviour.  It’s a cosy feeling.  Once we get past the unfairness of Jesus giving His life for us, once we understand that He was taking our punishment for our sins, once we understand that He did this because He loves us!

But he demands to be Lord too:

John 15:14: You are my friends if you do what I command. 

Whoops! We think that because we have a saviour that all we do is acceptable to Him, but friendship with Him is seen in our obedience to him and His word.

He’s you best friend.  

He left heaven for you.  

Left all His glory for you.  

Left His home for you.  

Born humbly for you.  

Lived as a man for you.  

Died for you.  

Rose for you.  

Is coming back for you!

3. It’s a Story of a Book.

We think that the Bible is a book of stories.  It’s not.  It’s much more than that!  

 The Bible is not one "book," it is a "library" of sixty-six books that were written over a period of more than a 1,500 years by many different authors.  

These authors were "inspired" in their thinking and writing by the Holy Spirit. 

Thus the Bible is the inspired Word of God without error. It also has the human "touch" from its authors.  So their “style” and “personality” comes out to us. 

The Bible is Literature, as is any book filled with language.  It has: Law, History, Wisdom, Poetry, Gospels, Epistles, Prophecy, and Apocalyptic Literature.

The promise of Christmas and the life, death, resurrection and return of jesus are all in this book.  

There is a another book mentioned in the Bible though.  It’s God’s friends list. 

It’s mentioned 8 times, and is known as the Book of Life or the Lambs Book of Life (Ps. 69:28; Phil 4:3; Rev. 3:5;13:8; 17:8; 20:12; 20:15; 21:27).

Rev. 3:5: The one who is victorious will, like them, be dressed in white. I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.

Luke 10: 20: However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

The real question at christmas is the story of this book.  Another way of saying this is: What’s your status?  Are you on the friends list?

if not, why not?  What’s stopped you accepting this incredible love of God through Jesus?

The consequences of not being on this friends list are too terrible to consider!

Rev. 20:15: Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Wrapping it up:

So what’s your story this Christmas?  

Are you like Mary who has an active and living relationship with God?

Do you realise how much Jesus actually loves you?  
That His love for you compelled Him to the cross?  
That your love for Him demands everything of You?

What’s your status?  
Is your name written in the Lamb's Book of Life?

God has not run out of ink and would love to write your name in there today!