Hope for Justice – Advent 1

Welcome back to afaithtalk.com. It’s the first day of Advent! This is truly the best time of the year. Just a couple days ago we celebrated Thanksgiving and now we’re in the time of anticipation and expectation and paying attention, listening and watching for Jesus. Yes, He’s with us every day, but don’t you want a new revelation? A fresh experience of his nearness?

I so love this time of year. The weather is colder which requires warmer clothes, because I get cold so easy, but still, the leaves are falling, it’s perfect for firelight and Christmas lights and oh the decorations. We can all become little children in our hearts in the way we react to the beauty and the majesty and the surprises and the food and the wonders of this season.

Today, on the first Sunday of Advent, we’re going to look at some resurrection related Scriptures from Paul and Peter. For this Sunday’s focus is Hope for Justice. That Justice comes with Jesus’s return. So let’s pray.

Lord Jesus, we’re here because it’s Advent. Your first is what we celebrate, but the next one is the one we expectantly await. We know you’re close, closer than our next breath. We know you’re ‘at the gates’. We know you’re knocking and you will come and eat with us. So Lord, we ask, show us the wonder in these Scriptures and let it enliven and enrich our hearts today. You are worthy of all the glory and I give it all to you. Amen.

In Acts 17, Paul is in Athens. Let’s see what he proclaims to the people. Hear it as if you were there too.

Acts 17:22-31
22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: to an unknown god. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.”

Oh how I love this Scripture. Several years ago, Jesus gave me a few verses from this one to memorize. And they gave me the much needed peace for living where I am, so far from family. In the old NIV, which I memorized, where it says in verse 26 “the boundaries of their lands” that one said “the exact places where the should live.”

Reading that made a huge difference in how I see where I live. I hope it does the same for you.

Verse 31… He has set a day. Yes He has. He will come back. His second Advent is assured. And when He does, he will judge in justice.

You need a relationship with Jesus to end up in the perfect place when this happens. If your heart isn’t right with him, I’m begging you, get right with God. He is coming soon.

The proof of this is His resurrection. He is Life. And when He returns, those He knows will get resurrection life too.

That’s why Peter says in chapter 1 of his first letter:
1 Peter 1:3-5
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.

Every word is true. You are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Salvation is coming. Jesus Saves. It is true. It is real, more real than anything on earth. 

So our hope is in His soon to come return. It’s a living Hope. Take those few verses and list what brings you hope in them? The wonder is all over these words. He is absolutely amazing. 

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Praise Him for the wonder. Praise Him for the gifts. Praise Him for the promises of salvation. We will be saved. In the meantime, we are always under his shield and eternally safe no matter what. Praise be to God!