Jeremiah 33:14-16 NLT… “The day will come, says the Lord, when I will do for Israel and Judah all the good things I have promised them. 15 “In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous descendant from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land. 16 In that day Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name: ‘The Lord Is Our Righteousness.’
Hope – Good Thoughts for Bad Times (Pulpit Manuscript/Devotional)
Hope is positive and patient expectation.
We must learn to accept the reality of finite harm, while simultaneously holding on to infinite hope.
God’s people find themselves exiled in captivity, with their holy city razed, and their hope is slim. Normally, when they received prophecy/the word of the Lord, it was an unpleasant message. As a matter of fact, the chapter that immediately precedes our text is a gloomy message that Jeremiah the prophet receives in jail from the Lord for God’s people. But Jeremiah prays again, and he hears a word of joy and hope, that encourages the people of God who found themselves in desperate need of some good thoughts for the bad times they were in.
The hope of Jesus’ advent/arrival is the good thought that immediately altars the mood, lifts the gloom, and gives us hope for something better than our current reality. The coming of the messiah/our righteousness is the promise of the text, and there is no hope better than Jesus! Isaiah says he’s wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, the prince of peace. He is indeed incomparable, and there is no hope greater than him!
The thought that God would be so in love with us, that God’s deity would compress itself into human form to save us, sanctify us, and to satisfy sin’s debt is a hope that was worth holding on to. But the thing about hope is that sometimes it’s reality is delayed, deferred, taking a long time. That’s exactly where God’s people found themselves, they had hope for justice, salvation, and for restoration, but it was far off. And so the word for us all to grasp this morning is hold on to your hope, because what is coming is more than we asked for and greater than anything we could imagine.
From the lineage of King David, God will raise a legitimate king who vindicates those who suffer from wrong being done to them, and who punished those who do wrong. We’ll call him the Lord our righteousness. It is the Hebrew name Jehovah Tsidkenu, and it translates to mean that there is no wrong, dishonesty, or unfairness in Him. He is the perfectly righteous one and his righteousness is everlasting.
In Christ we hope, because there is no ambiguity in him. At the beginning of this season of anticipation, may we wait patiently and joyfully, for the long expected Jesus, who is the promise of God and the hope of the world.
Antonie E. Walker Ministries 