Matt Chandler - The Promise of a Savior

If you have your Bibles, go ahead and grab them—Isaiah chapter 9. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be a hardback black one somewhere around you. Again, if you don’t own one, that’s our gift to you, so feel free to take it; we want you to have it. We will begin today our Advent series. You can tell that we have decked the halls, if you will, and we are ready to get going. But I want to say this to you as a means of entering into this season: we are, by human nature, men and women who anticipate and have great expectations of what is to come. It’s in our nature; we have done it our entire lives. We have habitually pursued the next thing and perpetually desired whatever is next. Even on our good days, we are haunted by the thought that better days lie ahead. Our experience is that when today is awful, tomorrow will be better, and even when today is awesome, tomorrow is going to be better. We have habitually chased that, even in our reluctance. What we’re saying is that we can’t wait to get past this—whatever 'this' is—to get to that. Now, sometimes that’s simple—sometimes that’s just a day off. I don’t know how you went into the Thanksgiving holidays; I had been running pretty hard. I was tired and ready for that break, ready for just a couple of days to hang out with my family, so I was looking forward to it. There was a great deal of anticipation—not only in my own heart but even in the hearts of my family. We have a mantra, particularly used with my son as I try to train him to be a man. You could even ask him: «Work hard, play hard.» We’re going to play hard, but to get to play hard, we’re going to work hard. I had to go in and get some work done on Wednesday. He had been out of school since Monday, and he didn’t like that; he wanted to party! So, I had to sit him down and explain, «We’re going to get there, buddy, but Daddy’s got some more to do. Most daddies have some work to do—most of your friends' daddies are not hanging out on Wednesday because they can’t; they’re at work until their job allows them to play.» So, I walked him through that idea again: work hard, play hard. I did what I had to finish up on Wednesday afternoon, sent it where it needed to go, and then I went home, and we started to play. By «play,» I mean lay around and eat. When all was said and done, I was looking forward to that. But sometimes, that anticipation, those expectations, are much bigger than just a day off. Maybe they are a year from now, or maybe two years from now. Perhaps we have this anticipation for something way out in the future that we’re truly ready to reach. But we are all driven by anticipation and expectation. When I was being trained as a minister—and if you didn’t know, that’s what we do—if you don’t know what that’s like, rent «Empire Strikes Back»; it’s very similar. So, when I was being trained in gospel ministry, the person responsible for the bulk of my training was a pastor in Abilene, Texas, named David McQueen. One day, David sat me down and said, «Matt, all frustrations are birthed out of unmet expectations.» If you see a marriage that’s on fire, if you see a person who is angry, or if you see someone who is bitter and broken, here’s what’s happened: they had expectations, they had anticipation, and then it didn’t come to pass. Their response to that unmet expectation is the frustration that you are witnessing. I find this to be true in all aspects of life. If I get frustrated, if I feel those surges in me that are prone to emerge, God help me, they are almost always linked to an expectation I had. I had the anticipation that once we got moving towards something, it turned out completely differently than I had expected, which leads me to behave childishly. All frustration is birthed out of unmet expectations. Now, with that said, I want to have a conversation because this whole season is built on anticipation. What I want to do is, by the mercy of God, drop an anchor into some turbulent waters to ensure we get underneath all we’re celebrating in a way that will sustain awe and rejoicing in our hearts, as well as redeem anticipation and expectation to a place that begins to shape our lives. Now, let me tell you what I’m not saying: I’m no Scrooge. I love this season. Cards on the table: the lights were on my house before Thanksgiving. I’m not that guy who opposes Christmas as a pagan holiday. No, I’m going to decorate—lights on the house, carols jamming off the Chandler iPod. Look around; we are not anti-Christmas at all. I’m just saying that the message of this season, and what you are already being bombarded with, is what Mark Sayers, a pastor in Australia, calls hyper-reality.