God IS Hope (Advent Encouragements)
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. – 1 Peter 1:13
*Here’s the best way to say it: the Christmas story reminds us that hope will never be found if you look horizontally. True hope is found only when you look vertically. It’s not enough to say that God gives us hope. What the Christmas story declares to us is that God is hope. And that hope is attached to two glorious aspects of his character.
First, God is perfectly holy in every way. It is the holiness of God that causes him to be angrily intolerant of sin. Now, I want you to think about God’s anger. You could argue that God’s anger is the hope of the universe. If God weren’t angry about sin, there would have been no cross and no hope of salvation for sinners. You would not want to live in a world where the one ruling the world was incapable of righteous anger. God’s anger with sin is a product of his holiness.
But there is more. God is not just perfectly holy, he is also bountifully loving. Because he is bountiful in love, God’s anger with sin didn’t cause him to wipe out sinful humanity forever, but to lovingly gift us with his Son to provide rescue, forgiveness, transformation, and ultimately deliverance. Jesus came to die, and it is on the cross of his death that the Father’s holy anger and his bountiful love meet in a violent moment of righteous judgment and gracious redemption. God is your only source for steady, unshakable, eternal hope. His holiness is your hope. His love is your hope. He is angry at what is destroying us, and in love he rescues us. The Christmas story preaches to us both the holiness and the love of God.
*From Come Let us Adore by Paul David Tripp,