Sermon Study Guide | Series: Come All Ye Faithless | Sermon: Come All Ye Hopeless | Scripture: Luke 1:5-25 | Date: November 30, 2025

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Update:

We’ve developed a daily Advent reading plan on YouVersion! Come All Ye Faithless is an honest journey through the stories of Scripture for those who feel hopeless, joyless, anxious, or lonely. Across twenty-five days, this devotional invites you to slow down, reflect, and encounter the God who meets us where faith feels thin.

Each day includes Scripture, a short reflection, and a prayer to help you discover that hope grows in silence, joy emerges through surrender, peace is born in trust, and love is revealed in presence.

Because the invitation of Christmas isn’t just for the faithful—it’s for all of us.

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CONNECT - “A Personal Reflection”

This section is designed to help you relate personally to the theme of the sermon. It encourages you to reflect on your own life experiences and how they connect to the message.

Advent is often portrayed as a joyful, bright season but many of us walk into it carrying shadows. Maybe you’ve experienced deep disappointment, loss, or a long season where your prayers seem to echo into silence. This week’s message opens a space to say: that’s okay. The message of Advent is that God enters into those very places.

Where in your life have you been tempted to stop hoping altogether? Are there areas where silence has lasted so long that you’ve assumed God must not be listening?

Take a few moments to share a story or feeling around waiting, loss, or hope deferred.

ENGAGE - “Exploring the Scripture”

This section invites you to dive into the biblical passage, discuss its meaning, and apply it to your life through thoughtful questions.

Read Luke 1:5–25 and reflect together on the following:

• Zechariah and Elizabeth were “righteous in the sight of God” (v.6), yet they carried a private pain that lasted for decades. How does this challenge your assumptions about suffering and faithfulness?
  
  
• The angel tells Zechariah, “Your prayer has been heard” (v.13). What does it stir in you to think that God may still be responding to prayers long-forgotten or left behind?
  
  
• Consider the phrase “Sometimes hope feels like the harder choice.” What has hope cost you? Has there been a time where it felt safer to lean into cynicism or numbness instead?
  
  
• Zechariah’s story invites us to reflect on the difference between believing in God and believing God will be good to me. Where do you sense a gap between those two in your own faith?
  
  
• What do you make of the contrast between Zechariah and Elizabeth’s responses to God’s movement? How might silence be used by God to form something deeper in us?
  
  
• Consider the idea that God’s silence is not his absence. How have you seen that to be true in your life or in someone else’s?
  
  

APPLY - “Putting the Scriptures into Action”

This section challenges us to take what we’ve learned and implement it in practical ways in our daily lives.

• Is there a place in your life where you’ve stopped praying? Have a visible, physical reminder to acknowledge this—not as a guarantee that everything will be fixed, but as a declaration that you’re open to hope again. ex
  
  • Light a candle or leave a light on
  • Place a note on your mirror
  • Flowers in your kitchen or a plant on your windowsill
  • Place a personal, notable object in a seeable area
    
    
• Commit to reading the Come All Ye Faithless daily devotional plan on YouVersion (Bible app) from today until Christmas Day
  
  • Don’t worry if you miss a day, just catch up so you can stay on-track! 
    
    • Think practice over perfection.
  • Note: YouVersion is a mobile app so you’ll need to install it on your phone or tablet to access the reading plan.
    
    • Use the link above or search “Menlo Church” in the Bible app
  • Share with a friend! If you’re someone who has seen God’s faithfulness break through a long season of silence, who else might benefit from a daily spiritual centering?

PRAY - “Seeking God’s Guidance”

This section offers a short prayer to help us center our hearts and invite God to work in our lives through his scripture.

God of hope,

Thank you that you meet us not just in our faith but in our fear. In our silence, in our waiting, and even in our disappointment—you are not absent. You are with us. Help us this Advent to listen for your voice again.

Where we’ve grown cynical, soften us.

Where we’ve stopped praying, reawaken us.

Where hope feels too risky, strengthen us.

May we not only believe you are good, but dare to believe you will be good to us.

We set a reminder of hope, not because everything is fixed, but because Jesus has come—and He will come again.

Amen.