Hope You Can Live With

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20100418 Sermon.mp3

The Resurrection message is about LIFE. Jesus: "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 14:19).

Life—eternal life—begins now! It's something we look forward to, but it's also something that impacts us today.

Last week we looked at GRACE we can live with. Today we're going to take the Resurrection life to another dimension—hope: HOPE we can live with.

These days people are looking for hope! A lot of people feel hopeless. People are fearful and worried for a lot of different reasons—because of the economy, housing market, unemployment rate, terrorism, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Remember the last presidential election? Change and hope were key themes that were tossed around in the political debates. People are still looking for hope.

So, let me ask: what are some things people have put their hope in—other than Jesus and the promises of God? Money (job, career); other people (spouse, friend, boss); government (economic stimulus package, agencies, programs, politicians); education (schools, science, technology); personal ability (will-power, determination). People are looking for hope in all sorts of places, because they are desperate to find hope.

Some time back, Jamie Buckingham wrote in Charisma magazine about Hugo Gryn, a rabbi in London. When he was young, he was held in a Nazi concentration camp where the prisoners were barely kept alive on a starvation diet. He wrote about his experience:

"It was the cold winter of 1944 and although we had nothing like calendars, my father, who was a fellow prisoner there, took me and some of our friends to a corner of a barrack. He announced it was the even of Hanukkah, produced a curious-shaped clay bowl, and began to light a wick immersed in his precious, but now melted, margarine ration. Before he could recite the blessing, I protested at this waste of food. He looked at me, then at the lamp, and finally said, ‘You and I have seen that it is possible to live up to three weeks without food. We once lived almost three days without water. But you cannot live properly for three moments without hope!'"

We all need hope, each one of us! We cannot live without hope. Hope provides the will and the determination to keep going through dark and difficult times. Hope helps us live!

Prov 13:12 - Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

In a world filled disappointment and sin, it's only the hope of the Resurrection that can help us live.

Each day brings us challenges and struggles and battles. We face heartaches and disappointments. Things don't always work out the way we want them to. People we love get sick. Accidents happen. We make bad choices and then we have to live with the consequences. Troubles come.

No matter what in life, it's hope that brings us through! Hope in God. Hope in eternity. Hope that is vital and alive! A living hope that gives us courage and strength to keep going. To overcome. To be victorious.

None of us want a weak, anemic faith! We don't want an irrelevant religion! When we trust in Jesus, we expect him to make us strong for our everyday challenges—in regular activities, in ordinary struggles. Jesus' life gives us victories in the our everyday battles. We can LIVE in the trenches because he lives.

1 Pet 1:3 - ...In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead...

A. A living hope comes only from a living God!

1 Tim 4:10 - ...we have put our hope in the living God, who is the Savior of all men...

• It is a LIVING God that gives us hope—a resurrected God, Jesus Christ.
• Throughout history people have looked to leaders who eventually died and were buried: Mohammed. Buddha. Confucius. Marx. Lenin. Mao. Joseph Smith.
• But our hope is not in some religious leader or political figure who died and was put in a grave. That's a dead hope, not a living hope. There would be no promise there.
• Others have put their hope in some kind of a god that was never alive. But our hope is not in some idol—some cold, lifeless, stone god.
• A living hope comes from a living God—a resurrected God, Jesus Christ, the Savior of all.

B. Hope means waiting.

Rom 8:25 - if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

Tit 2:13 - ...we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ,

• We wait for God to appear! Hope means waiting for God to show up!
• How does God "show up"? In more than one way: "grace...has appeared to all men..." (Tit 2:11); Jesus brought God's grace to humankind when he came to this earth.
• God "showed up" on the cross when Jesus "gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own" (Tit 2:14).
• God continues to "show up" each day when he "teaches us to say ‘No' to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age" (Tit 2:12).
• Our hope in God was met in Jesus' coming, through his sacrifice, and through his power to change our lives; but our hope is still not fulfilled—we still wait for the "blessed hope...the glorious appearing" yet to come.

C. Hope anticipates.

• Hope means waiting—but it's much more than merely waiting. Sometimes we "wait" for something with a certain dread—like sitting in the waiting room at the dentist office. You know what's coming, but you're not excited about it. This kind of waiting is not hope!
• Hope is an eager expectation for what's coming. Hope fills us with excitement and anticipation! We look forward to the coming promise—like kids counting down the days until Christmas... or even better, to use a picture from the Bible, hope is like a kid in an orphanage, wanting desperately for some couple to come and claim him as their own; when you hear that prospective adoptive parents are coming to the orphanage to choose one, hope is what you feel...

Rom 8:23-24 - ...we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. ²⁴ For in this hope we were saved.

• Anticipation fills us with life, strength, and determination. Knowing something better is on the way, helps us face the challenges and battles now. We're hoping to be adopted. We're hoping to be rescued. Hold on a little longer! Something good is on the way.

D. God guarantees our hope.

Eph 1:18 - [Paul prayed] "that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints."

• Imagine being buried under debt, facing foreclosure, but knowing you rich uncle has put you in his will—and he's 98 years old. You're looking forward to a glorious inheritance, when debt and trouble will no longer be a problem!
• This is our hope! It's guaranteed because it's based on God's promises. Without hope, we might be tempted to give up; we might be tempted to surrender to despair.

E. Hope lifts our spirits and frees our minds.

• Without hope we become slaves to our worries and our troubles. Without hope we become slaves to our circumstances—slaves to fears and depression.
• Without hope, we can lose the will and strength to live, unable to look with expectation into the future.

From The Diary of Anne Frank, on PBS's Masterpiece Classics [04-11-10]:

   Otto Frank, her father, is mediating a dispute between Anne and Mr. Dussel, a dentist who is living in the attic with the Frank family. It is during the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam. They have been in hiding while Jews have been rounded up by the thousands and shipped off to concentration camps in Germany. Confined to the attic in cramped space for nearly two years, the two are arguing over how to share a writing desk.

   Otto tells Mr. Dussel, "I know it's difficult situation. You need your privacy to study...and so does my daughter."

   "If I may say so, Mr. Frank," replies Mr. Dussel, "she's a very head-strong girl. You see, if it were Margot [Anne's sister], I wouldn't mind."

   "Writing is very important to her," Anne's father says. "I believe it's the only way she can make some sense of the world—find solace in these terrible circumstances. Work and hope—that's what we tell our daughters, Mr. Dussel. That's why we believe so strongly in her education. The only freedom," he says, tapping his forefinger alongside his temple, "is in here. This is our hope for the future."

   Hope enables you to look beyond your terrible circumstances. Hope allows you to peer into a better future, helping you make some sense in an otherwise senseless world.

   Even confined to an attic, Anne had hope about what would come after the attic. She endured the sound of air raid sirens and exploding bombs, but in her mind she heard words...and she wrote them down in her diary.

   Anne wasn't free to go outside; she wasn't free to breathe the fresh air—but Anne had hope. Without physical freedom, she still had hope for her future—about what she would be one day; about what she would do...when all this was over.

   Anne wasn't free to come and go. She wasn't even free to use her writing desk whenever she wanted. But she still had freedom to dream. Hope gave her freedom "in here" [tap the mind].

For the Christian, hope gives the freedom to live each day as a gift from God. Hope gives us the freedom to dream. Hope liberates us from negative thinking so we can hold on to God's promises. Hope lifts our spirits and gives us the freedom to anticipate what God is doing. Hope gives us the faith to believe that God is up to something good.

• When we're surrounded by black night, hope helps us hold on, waiting for the dawning light. Hope reminds us that it will come!
• Hope gives us the ability to anticipate what is coming, to wait for what is still on the way; to wait with expectation for its arrival.
• Christian hope gives us the strength and the courage to press on, even while we are forced to endure terrible circumstances.
• Hope enables us to lift our eyes from our immediate troubles so we can look at God's distant promises.
• Hope clears the fog of our confusion and unanswered questions so we can see clearly into the future.
• Hope gives us freedom to escape our difficult circumstances so we can be free "in here [tap the mind]—in our thinking, in our attitudes" and "in here [tap the heart]—in our conviction and in our courage."

Hope gives us LIFE—the freedom to live—so we can keep going when we'd rather stop; so we can have the resolve to do the right thing when we'd rather give up. Hope helps us live when the world tries to suck the life out of us.

Heb 6:11-12 - ¹¹ We want each of you to show this same diligence to the very end, in order to make your hope sure. ¹² We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.

Heb 6:18-19 - ¹⁸ ...we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged. ¹⁹ We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure.

There is only one place to set your anchor of hope where it will hold firm and will not slip: in the eternal promises of God.

Hope like that allows us to live life to the full each day—no matter what we face; no matter what we go through!

How is your hope? Is it sure? Is it certain (NLT)? Is it a "full-bodied hope" (MSG)?