Jesus, Our Eternal Hope – Ep. 140

Jesus didn’t come to Earth at Christmas. He didn’t send us a book. Right? Jesus didn’t send us a bunch of rules. Jesus didn’t send us regulations. Jesus sent himself, Emmanuel, God, with us. He is the past. He is your present present. He is your future. You can trust him. Created on purpose and for purpose. Welcome back to the Daron Earlewine podcast and Merry Christmas season to know I threw on little flannel action here that I felt was Christmassy. I don’t know. We haven’t decorated the studio yet. We may have to get into that.

We just need to up the ante on the logo, maybe throw some garland in there, a couple of flickering lights. Yeah, we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out. We’ll Christmas it up for you. I love Christmas. I talked about in our last episode, which is our Thanksgiving episode, Christmas has exploded in our house already. My wife, it’s November first. It’s not today, but I’m saying on November first, it’s Christmas season. We’re going for it hard.

And I have to admit, if you’re married, you know how it is when your spouse is really into something. And I don’t know why we do this. Maybe it’s just me, maybe you’re a way better husband or wife than I am, probably are. But when they’re really fired up about something for some reason, you got to be kind of like against it for a little bit. Like, you’re not going to get all that fired up. They’re being a little extra, right?

And I’ll just say it right here on the podcast for all the world to hear. So, I’m just getting it out there. I realize that in the past, not this year, in the past, I’ve been a little reluctant, right? I’ve been a little bit of maybe a bad attitude every once in a while, about the level of Christmas cheer that my wife wants to bring. Now, here’s why then this will make sense to a lot of husbands, is there are a lot of things that we think are cool that we might enjoy happening in our home, but what we as husbands realize is that oftentimes, how do I want to say this?

It’s a project for us and most men that I know, we don’t like to fail. Now, ladies, if you’re married to a guy who’s just a handyman, right, he knows how to use tools, right? He understands how to measure things with a measuring tape and say things like, oh, that’s four and three sixteen. If he understands fractions and things of this nature as it corresponds to tape measures. If he knows the difference between a wood nail and a machining nail, if he has a brad gun, maybe in the garage. Okay, if you have that one of “those kind of husbands,” we’re not talking to you because I get it. You’re like, honey, I was thinking maybe we could build Jesus’s cradle right here under the tree this year. And your husband’s like, I love it, honey, let me go be awesome and be manly. And he probably has a lot of flannel. His beard’s probably better than mine. Now let’s talk to the other wives.

Your husband may understand how to use a hammer. He may have a couple tools. He doesn’t have a workbench. If he had a workbench, he doesn’t actually do any work on that bench. Okay. Those kinds of husbands, when you have these ideas and get fired up about really decorating, all we hear is potential failure. Because what we know is we’re going to screw the project up at least once, probably three times.

We’re probably going to hang it crooked. We’re not going to know really why or how to fix it. We’re probably going to curse in the process, right? The kid’s going to hear the curse words now. You got a kid that’s cursing. Why? Christmas. Christmas projects now. That’s why is a three-year-old cussing? Because dad cussed. Because we had to build Jesus’s cradle thing manger this year in the front yard.

This was what happens. This is why we get a bad attitude sometimes. But I’m past it. I’m in, totally in for Christmas. And that was a long intro, but I was just having fun. I hope you had fun. Hope it made you laugh because that’s what I was doing. Anyway, I love Christmas and we’re going to spend a couple of weeks here talking about Advent. And if you’ve never heard the word advent, it’s a word we use in the church. Maybe they use it other places, but this is Advent season, and Advent literally means the coming of Christ or just arrival or coming. It actually comes from the. I know you were really hoping I could give you some Latin words today.

Advent comes from the Latin word Aventus, which means coming. This is the arrival of Jesus. The Advent season is a time where we’re leading up to and looking for the arrival of Jesus at Christmas. The question that we have to come to is, what are we waiting for or expecting in this Advent season? And so around a church structure, some churches celebrate Advent. And there are Advent candles. They’re each a different color and they stand for these things, right?

Hope, peace, joy and love are the four Advent candles and the arrival of Jesus. Right? The advent of Jesus brings us hope, peace, joy, and love. And today we’re going to talk a little about hope. That’s the first candle candles purple. In case you wanted to know that as well. These are all handy playing a trivial pursuit or possibly watching an episode of Jeopardy. Somebody can say, what is the first Advent candle and what is a color? And you could buz in and you could say, what is purple and hope? And they would be like, yes.

Then you can be like, I’ll take foreign kings for six hundred. Anyway, talking about let’s really get into the content. That is the content. But let’s get going. When we record the podcast just a little bit. Hey, you know what? BTS here behind the scenes, okay, is when we record the podcasts, we do what we call batch recording them, meaning we record multiple podcasts in one day. This helps us plan everything out, make sure that Coop and the team has time to edit it and get them all scheduled.

And this is the third episode of the day, just so you’re aware. So I may be a little slap-happy here, because when you try to put three to four episodes of content in your brain at the same time, then you got to have a little fun. Which means for me, just chasing squirrels and things that I want to say that hopefully make you laugh and make me laugh. So I ask for your patience as we’re on episode three for the day.

All right, listen. We talk about understanding why we would hope in Jesus. We got to understand the context of why he is hope, because he is. The reality about Jesus is if we look at those four terms around advent, hope, joy, peace, and love, Jesus is, he personifies all of those attributes. And that’s why it’s so important for us to have a relationship with Jesus. Because what are four things we could really use a ton of in our life?

Hope, peace, joy, and adapt. Hope, joy, peace, and love. And we have these embodied in who Jesus is. Jesus is our hope. And here’s the thing I love is Jesus can be, not can be. Jesus is our hope. Because Jesus is the past, the present, and the future. If you’re taking notes on today’s podcast, which you’re probably not, those are the three points. Jesus is the past. He is the present, he is the future. And the fact that he is secure in all of those allows him to be our hope.

For all times. And his arrival of his advent did bring great hope. The reality was that the Jewish people, the Israelites, had been waiting centuries for the arrival of the Messiah, waiting for this leader, this shepherd king that would come and lead, that would be the fulfillment, the chosen One, the Savior of the world, to fulfill all of the covenants and all of the truth of God’s law and his love and his relationship.

They were waiting on the arrival of this Messiah, who is Jesus, who is hope, and he is the past, meaning that Jesus is eternal. On the podcast, we say it like this, he is for you. And one of the ways that you know if someone is for you is their track record of loyalty. And the amazing thing about Jesus is he has always been, he is eternal, he is hope, because he is the. And the reason that’s a hopeful, comforting thing for me is if I’m going to somewhere new, if I’m going somewhere new on a trip, it’s really comforting to me and brings me actual hope that I’ll get there.

If I have Someone who’s already been there, right? They know how to take you where you’re going, because in the past, they’ve already been there. And this made me think of if you’re old enough, do you remember road trips before GPS, right? Do you remember times, maybe you were in a small enough town? Do you remember people giving you directions based on landmarks that they know were there like that? You’re like, hey, you guys got to come over Thursday night. We’ll watch Thursday Night Football together. How do I get to your house?

Oh, it’s simple. You’re going to go down here, right? Exit off the freeway. They’re going to go down about a quarter mile till the road tease. When the road tease, you’re going to take a left, take a left, head down about two miles or so. When you see the Red Barn, you’re going to hang a right. Hang a right at the Red Barn, and then we’re on the left there, about a quarter mile down. If you cross the bridge, you’ve gone too far. Do you remember directions like that?
You’re going, and that’s all you have written down. Get off T turn left, Red Barn, turn right. If I see the bridge, I’ve gone too far. There were times when you had those kind of directions. I’ve never been to this person’s house. I don’t know really where I’m going. It’s night and you get a little freaked out, you start to lose hope, maybe because you’re like I’ve never been here. It would be nice if they were in the car going, hey, Red Barn’s coming up here on the right. Now, we don’t have those kind of fears now driving because we have GPS.

We put the GPS coordinates in and guess what? Tada. It shows us the exact way we’re going to get there. There’s a voice telling us how to do that, and it even gives us our approximate arrival time. Life doesn’t have that. But what we do have is Jesus. He is our hope because he is the past. He is eternal meaning. There’s nothing that we’re going through in the future that he can’t walk us through because he’s already been there.

Jesus is eternal. And the word of God says it like this. This is really, really cool. We go into the Christmas story in Matthew 2. Matthew 2. It says this. After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who is to be born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him. When King Herod heard this, he was disturbed and all of Jerusalem with him.

When he had called together all the people’s chiefs, priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born and Bethlehem in Judea. They replied, for this is what the prophet has written. But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah. For out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel. The chief priests, right, they knew about ancient prophecies.

And what they’re quoting here is Micah Two. And in Micah two, there’s this passage, but they stop one sentence short. There in Matthew is a sentence they stop there with, you will shepherd my people. And the end of that sentence says this, whose goings forth have been from old, from everlasting, that this person who would come and lead, this ruler that would come and rule and lead, he was from everlasting. This is a prophecy given hundreds and hundreds of years before the arrival of the coming of Jesus right at Christmas. And he’s fulfilling this, and it’s letting us know that we can have hope in Jesus because he is the past. John declared that Jesus was eternal as well. Another scripture here, John one, one through five. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God. And the word was God.

He was with God. In the beginning, Jesus is eternal. Jesus also makes this claim about himself in John chapter eight. Check this out. Jesus is kind of in an argument with some of the Jewish leaders, and he says, your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day. He saw it and was glad. They say, you are not yet fifty years old, they said, and you have seen Abraham very truly. I tell you, Jesus answered before Abraham was born, I am.
This connection to him saying I am was a connection back to God, to Yahweh saying I am that I am. And Jesus coming back and bringing himself and saying I am God and I am eternal. Whatever you’re looking for and hoping for in your future, and you feel like I could really use someone who’s been there before, guess what? Jesus is your hope. Something else about the past I want to say to us is this. Why does this matter? Well, the hope of moving forward.

But also, here’s the thing about this. For me to have hope for my future, because that’s where hope lives, right? Hope lives in the future. For me to have hope in the future, oftentimes I need something or someone that can do something about my past. Because you may be at a place right now where you’re like, yeah, Daron, listen, I’m trying to become who God’s created me to be. I’ve been listening to some of the episodes of the podcast, been watching some of the podcasts on YouTube. And the hurdle I can’t get over, the place I’m still stuck, is I want to believe that God could use me for great things.

But I’ve got this past that I can’t get past. How can Jesus be hope for what’s in my past? Well, here’s the cool part, is that God actually was dreaming about your redemption before he was thinking about your creation. Two Timothy one nine through ten says this, he has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we’ve done, but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but is now revealed to the appearing of our savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. Two Timothy one nine and ten.

This grace was given to us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time. You need someone that can deal with your past. Jesus is eternal. He was set apart to bring apart his grace before the world was created. God had your redemption in mind before you were even created. He can deal with your past. He can give you hope for the future. And part of that comes in this is actually taking those pieces of your past and trusting them with God.
I love this passage of scripture in Psalm, Psalms 18, verses, 20 through 24 in the message paraphrase says it like this. God made my life complete when I placed all the pieces before him. When I got my act together, he gave me a fresh start. Talk about hope, right? Says now I’m alert to God’s ways. I don’t take God for granted. Every day I review the ways he works. I try not to miss a trick.

I feel put back together and I’m watching my step. Listen to this one. God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes. If you’re stuck right now, you’re like, I struggle to find Hope, Daron, because of what I see in my past. Listen, he is your hope because he is eternal and he can put the pieces of your life back together because of his grace and his love. Think about that for a minute and we’ll be back after this short commercial break.

Is it time for you to take your next step towards discovering your purpose, but you’re not sure what to do? Maybe jumping into the entire Spiritual DNA course seems just like a little too much for you right now. No problem at all. That’s why I want you to know about the five-day jump start to purpose. It’s totally free, and it’s a five-day audio course you’re going to listen to. Just, it’s really short, like five, six minutes a day. But it’s going to help you. Just, let’s call it an appetizer, right? To help you jumpstart this process towards purpose. It’s free. All you got to do is go to daronearlewine.com/jumpstart. It looks like this right behind me on the screen. You’re going to go there and we’re going to send you the course for free. And I’ll help you take your next step because, hey, we say it every week. I don’t want you forget about it, right? God’s created you on purpose and for purpose. Let’s jump-start that purpose. Now, let’s get back to the podcast.

All right, welcome back. So first thought is, he is hope because he’s the past. Guess what? He’s also the present.
And here’s the deal is for you and me, when I’m walking through a hopeless situation, you know what I really need to find hope in my hopeless situation. I need someone who will walk with me through the hopeless valley of the shadow of death. Second thing we always say here on the podcast, right, is that God is near you, not far away. And that can give you hope. Daron, I’m in a hopeless situation where I don’t know what’s going to happen. I feel so alone. I feel so hopeless. I feel so afraid.

Well, guess what? You’re never alone. Because the word of God says that Jesus, right, is a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He is near you. He is the good shepherd, right? That walks with you through the dark valley of death. We don’t need to be afraid because he is close beside us, guarding and guiding us all the way. Psalm 23, verse 4. If you need hope for the present, Jesus is your hope for the present. Because Jesus is the good shepherd who is near you and with you and walking through this valley.

Don’t take my word for it, right? That’s what Jesus actually said in John 10:11. I am the Good Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He’s the good shepherd and he’s near you in this moment, leading you, loving you, guiding you, shepherding you to the hope, to the future. And that’s where we’ll end. It is Jesus is hope because he is the past. He’s near me in the present. But guess what?

He is the future. He holds the future. He creates the future. And he’s inviting you to walk into the future with him. When my future feels hopeful, that’s what I need. I need someone who creates it. I was just sitting down with a friend the other day who’s in a. He’s in kind of a transitional, transformational, if you will, time of his life, changing careers, changing some pretty big habits that were detrimental in his life. And he’s seeing God show up in really, really powerful ways and he’s trying to get his mind around what’s next.

What does my future look like? How do I take what I’m learning about my Spiritual DNA and who God’s created me to be and how do I move towards a new career? How do I move towards this sense of purpose where Christ is at the center of it? And here’s what I encouraged him by. And I know guys that I come back to some of the same scriptures. And you may be like, Daron, come on, man. Again, there’s like sixty-six books in the Bible. You can’t find a new scripture.

When God gives me a new scripture, I’ll give it to you. But this is one that I come back to time and time again. And I encouraged him with this and I want to encourage it, encourage you with it, because God has been bringing me back to it in this season, where I’m at in my ministry, in my life. And it’s back to the Book of Ephesians, chapter two, verses eight through ten, for it’s by grace. You’ve been saved through faith.

So my past is dealt with, and I’m brought into this present moment with God. And it’s not for myself. It’s the gift of God, not by work, so that no one can boast. Okay, then who am I? Well, it says, for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works. So there’s hope there because there’s a purpose behind my life. Then it says this, which God prepared in advance for us to do. What I’ve been encouraging my friend with, what I’ve been encouraging myself with, and what I want to encourage you with is this whole deal of life is a set up.

It’s already set up. The future. Right? He is the past. He’s the present. He’s the future. You can have hope in your future because God’s already there. I don’t know theologically how all that works, but what I know is he’s eternal. What I know is that he has prepared things for you to accomplish. He’s prepared them in advance for you to step in to fulfill the calling that he created for you for in the first place, and saved you by grace for in the first place. Not so you can boast, but so you can be grateful for him, so you can enjoy the relationship, and so you can create the future that’s currently on his heart and his mind.

When you’re hopeless about your future, you need to walk with someone that creates it. And that’s what Jesus is. That’s what Jesus does. The Old Testament even talks about this. Here’s a famous passage of Scripture, Jeremiah, 29:11. Quote it with me, you probably know it. It’s on a bumper sticker somewhere in your car, right? For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil or for good. Not for evil. To give you a future and a hope.
Oh, really, God? I’m feeling really kind of helpless here. I’m not really helpless and hopeless. I’m not sure what to do. Oh, wait a second. I can trust you because you are hope and you know the plans already. You know the future. Yeah, I know the future because I’ve prepared in advance for you to step into it. So I just need you to trust me and know that I am your hope. Here’s some more Scripture. One Peter one three through four says this, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. We have a living hope. Why do we have a living hope? Because our hope is in Jesus, who is alive forevermore, who always has been, who always will be the same yesterday, today, and forever.

If you’re trying to hold on to hope in your future, Jesus has it. You can trust him. Listen, I know hope is challenging, and the reality of your life is you’re probably stuck in one of those places. You’re stuck in the past of what you’ve done or what’s been done to you. You’re paralyzed in the future. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I don’t know if I’m alone. I’m scared. I’m stuck. I’m frozen in the present.

Or you’re at a place where you’re about to give up because you just don’t have hope, that the future could be any different than what you’ve known, than where you’ve gone and within yourself. You don’t have the resources. You don’t have the strength to say, I can’t find hope myself. That’s okay. Because here’s the reality. You were never meant to find it on your own. Jesus is your hope. Not in a bunch of rules, not in a bunch of regulations, not a bunch of things that you have to learn and memorize. He is your living hope. Because Jesus didn’t come to Earth at Christmas.

He didn’t send us a book. Right? Jesus didn’t send us a bunch of rules. Jesus didn’t send us regulations. Jesus sent himself Emmanuel, God, with us. He is the past. He is your present. He is your future. You can trust. Don’t. I don’t go here very often on the podcast, but I want to today. It would be foolish for me to assume that everybody that downloads the podcast is currently a follower of Jesus.

You may have stumbled upon the podcast through Instagram or YouTube or a friend told you about it. Maybe you’ve seen me speak at your company or your school or at a camp or conference or a church, and so you thought, you know, I’ll check it out. Maybe you read the book and you’ve stumbled into the podcast, but you’re at a place where you go. You know what, Daron? I’m trying to figure out life, but I’ve never actually crossed the line of faith.
I’ve never actually given my life to Jesus. I’ve never, like you just read that. I’ve never laid the pieces of my past down before him and received his grace and forgiveness for that. I’ve never actually seen or experienced. Rather that God would be near me and walk with me. And honestly, Daron, the tough part is I don’t know what my future looks like on earth or in heaven. I don’t know if I were to die today, I don’t know where my spirit would actually spend eternity.
Well, what I’d love to give you this Christmas season is the greatest gift that could ever be given. And that is a relationship with Jesus. And the way that starts is it’s a gift, right? Like we just read about, it’s the gift of grace. You didn’t do anything to earn it. You don’t deserve it, you can’t buy it. But the hope of Christmas is that you’re already Forgiven because of what Jesus did on the cross and coming back from the dead, the empty grave.

And so all you have to do is receive it to believe in your heart that Jesus is who he says he is and confess it with your mouth that you could be saved. And so I want to encourage you, if that’s where you’re at, that maybe today would be the day that you cross the line of faith. Today would be the day that hope comes to reside in your past, present and future. And if that’s where you’re at, a simple prayer could be this.

Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God that died to take away the sins, my sins, the sins of the earth, and to restore our relationship. And so Jesus, I give you my life. You can say it like that, or you can say it in a way that feels authentic to you. All that’s important is that you believe and you confess and then you begin to follow. Follow him out of your past in this present moment, into the hope of the future that he has prepared in advance for you to live.
Hey listen, would you do me a huge favor? If you prayed that and you stepped into a relationship with Jesus, you crossed that line of faith. I would love to follow up with you and help you figure out what your next step is. So please, please, when the podcast is over, email me Daron, D-A-R-O-N at blackbirdmission.com. Or you can text me three one seven five five zero fifty seventy, or just reach out and DM me through any of the socials. But I would love to know if you found hope in his name is Jesus through this episode. So we can help you, we can pray for you, and we can help you take your next step into your future.

Hey, God bless you guys. Merry Christmas. We’re back with another episode next week. I love you. I appreciate you. Don’t forget, God’s for you. He’s not against you. He’s near you. He’s not far away. And he’s created you on purpose and for purpose.

Talk to you guys next time right here on the Daron Earlewine podcast.