In this message, Andrew teaches that Christian hope is a confident expectation grounded in God’s character and promises, not a curated emotional “vibe,” and he uses the story of Zechariah in Luke 1 to show how true hope is formed, tested, and fulfilled. People naturally live within layered and competing stories—God’s story of redemption alongside cultural narratives of self-rescue, consumption, image, and control—and that these rival hopes subtly shape where we place our trust. Zechariah becomes a model of faithful endurance in disappointment, holding to God’s promises even when his own long-held longing for a child remained unmet, yet his reaction to Gabriel reveals how deferred hope can make the heart resistant to receiving concrete answers. Advent announces God’s interruption of every blended story by stepping into the world through the incarnation, replacing self-help stories with the saving presence of a real Savior whose coming brings a hope that does not disappoint. The way forward is to identify rival hopes, detach from the daily habits that reinforce them, and re-aim your trust toward Jesus through practices that retrain the heart to live in one story, under one King.
