All right. How we doing, church? Doing good? All right, you sound good. If you got your Bible and I hope you do,

go to John chapter 8. John chapter 8. We are in week two of this, this Christmas series called

Unexpected Hope. And the big question that I want to ask you today to deal with is where do you put your

hope? And when we talk about hope,

biblically is different than the way we use the word hope. Usually when we say hope,

we mean like I wish. Like I hope I can, you know, somebody comes here for Christmas or I hope

my team wins or something like that. When the Bible talks about hope, it means it's an expectation

that a deep desire will be met.

That hope biblically is an expectation that a deep desire will be met.

And our hope for you this season is that you would encounter the unexpected hope that you find when you come face to face with Jesus.

So what we're doing over this series is we're looking at face-to-face encounters that people had with Jesus and the hope

that they find in him. You see, that's what Christmas is all about. Because when God created mankind,

when he created an Adam and Eve, the Bible says that he formed Adam by putting together the dirt or the dust of the

ground into the form of a man, and then he breathed the ruah or the breath, and in Hebrew,

ruah became breath or spirit, the breath of life into Adam, and Adam opens his eyes, and the first

thing that he ever sees is the face of his creator.

And then when sin enters the world, then Adam and Eve are cut off from God and there are

distance from God. And all throughout the Old Testament, a sacrificial system is created to

almost appease or cover your sins. And God is in the Holy of Holies, he's in this other place.

But then, at Christmas, when Jesus is born, the Word becomes flesh, and God, once again,

puts a face on.

And that you and I, because of life, death and resurrection of Jesus, that we can come face to

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