Sermon notes August 5th, 2007

HOPE: What is it and what does it do for me?
August 5th, 2007

The title of this mornings sermon is HOPE: What is it and what does it do for me?

I want to begin today by telling you a story. Its a story from a time when wars were fought with sword and shield and bow and arrow. There was once a great kingdom of people who lived on the open plains. They had no fortress or defense of any kind. They lived life in the open. They loved horses and would hunt for food and protect their land on horseback. However, a dark power began to rise up that hated these horsemen; that hated the fact that they lived so freely. So they began to build a huge army to go and wipeout the horsemen. In total the horsemen had only several thousand warriors and when they heard that the evil force had built an army of tens of thousands they knew that they could not win a battle with them in the open. So the horsemen decided to flee to a fortress that their ancestors had built for such a moment. They took up refuge their and waited for their enemy to arrive.

Although the fortress that they fled to had never been overtaken and although the people had never lost a battle in this fortress fear began to grip them. These people were horsemen, used to running free and fighting their battles in the open, but now they were cornered deep in the mountains in a fortress... and their enemy was approaching... they could hear the enemies drum beat and footsteps as tens of thousands of enemies soldiers came closer. Even scarier was the glow on the horizon from the enemies torches that they carried in the night. The courage of the horsemen began to fail.

At this moment, one of their leaders named Aragorn is sitting on a set of steps in the castle speaking with a young soldier and asks him how is doing. The young boy answers, “I am afraid sir, the men say that we will not last that night. They say that there is no hope.” Now Aragorn is a man who is rightfully their king, but he has always run from his destiny, but in this moment he rises up and answers... “There is always hope!” Now some of you may have guess that this is from the story the Lord of the Rings, which I am sure that you have heard about. But that line is one of my favorites... “There is always hope!” After Aragorn says that, it is like it starts a fire in his heart and in the men around him... although the battle is tough, they eventually win. Because they had hope that they could win the fight they continued on even though it seemed impossible. Because they had hope, even though many men were lost and the enemy kept coming they persevered. If there was no hope to win, what would be the point in fighting. If they had no hope they likely would not have fought as hard as they did and make the sacrifices that they did.

What I want to talk to you about this morning is Hope! Paul talks about faith, hope and love in 1 Corinthians. I find it interesting that we talk a lot about faith and a lot about love... but I have not heard many sermons or teaching about hope.

Please turn with me to 1 Peter 1:3 and 13. But before we read it, lets pray together.

PRAYER

What is hope?

Hope is a word that we use a lot in the english language, but I think that the hope that we use most of the time is not the same hope that Peter uses here in the bible. We often use hope in sentences like. I hope there is enough rice left over for me or Sanny might say I hope that Amor is not mad at me for not washing the dishes... that might be more like wishful thinking then its like hope. In other words, we often use hope for things that have a good chance of not happening or that we are not really confident about.

But the hope that Peter talks about here is entirely different. Peter is referring to hoping for the delivery of a promise of God... to the promise of salvation for those that believe in Christ... the salvation of our souls. “fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” The grace referred to here is the salvation of our souls. This is a hope in something that is sure. It is not wishful thinking. It is not a 50/50 chance that we will be saved. It is not even a 90% chance that we will be saved.

Story about Owen getting saved. Please turn to Romans 10:9.

::::Hope is an anticipation of the delivery of a promise of God::::

What are we hoping for?
1)Eternal Life (a home)
--John 3:16
--It is hard to think of eternal life here on earth. Everything around us seems to have an end. You buy a new shirt... it looks great at first but after a few weeks you notice its color begin to change and after a while you don't wear it much... eventually you stop wearing it and you throw it away. The load you just bought for your phone eventually gets used up. That big sack of rice you thought would last forever eventually runs out. But once we are a child of |God we have eternal life. We will live forever!
2)Life with Him (a home)
--John 14:2
--Not only do we have eternal life, but we have life with him, in fact he is preparing a place for us to live and to stay. The language here refers to the preparation that a husband would do for his wife before they are married. It refers to him preparing a house and place for her to stay. Like a husband, Christ is preparing a place for us to stay so that we can be near Him and with him.
3)No more suffering or pain
--Revelation 21:4
--This is really simple. There is no more pain and suffering in heaven. The pain, suffering, sadness etc that we experience here will be no more in heaven.

So lets review so far...

Hope is the anticipation of God's promise. It is more of a looking to then wishful thinking!

::::We are hoping for eternal life, a life with him and no more pain::::

How does hope change the way we live today:

1)HOPE GIVES US COURAGE: Psalm 27:13-14
-Someone told me that for Christians, there is always a tomorrow. There is always a next. There is always something to look forward to. I have not talked to Sanny and Amor about their mountain trip last week, but I can imagine what some of it was like. I think that they told me that it is a 6 hour hike to Pingalungin correct? I imagine that at some point during the hike that they started to get tired and that water started to run out. I imagine that at some point the hike stopped being as fun as it was at the beginning and they began to say to themselves, I will be glad when this is over.
-Can you imagine Sanny how you would feel if Mordegai turned to you and said during the hike, I am sorry but there is no end to this walk, we will just walk for the next three days and then go home. If there is no destination in something like that it hardly has a point. Nobody would want to go on and continue. Knowing that at the end of all hardship and work that there is a goal/destination makes it all worth while.
-When we go through painful or hard times we can continue and have courage because we know there is a destination. We have a hope that is sure that no matter how hard the road is that our destination is with Christ for all eternity.
-I know that in some of the darkest days of my life that all I have had to hold onto was God's promise of eternal life. I knew that no matter how bad I felt in the moment, that God still loved me and that if this was the end of me, that I would be with him until eternity. Psalm 27:13-14.
2)HOPE GIVES US PEACE:
-Having a secure salvation is like having a buy in a tournament. When I played basketball in High School some of the tournaments would have an odd number of teams. Therefore one of the teams would get a buy... meaning that they did not have to compete in the first round of the tournament. Sometimes this was given to the best team, sometimes this was given to a team randomnly... but whoever got the buy was at peace at least for that round because they knew that they did not have to perform... they did not have to worry about mistakes that they made.
-We hope in a sure salvation. There is no doubt in it. There is nothing that we need to do other then believe and recieve. We don't have to perform. When we make mistakes we don't say I hope God still loves me or I hope God will forgive me. The hope that we have is for sure. Even if we have sinned the worst possible sin our salvation is sure. Our hope does not rely on us... our hope relies on God!
3)HOPE GIVES US JOY: 1 Peter 1:8
-You know that I often pray that I would be full of joy. I often pray that Lord give me joy in every step that I take today. I think that joy should be the mark of a Christian. I think that in everything that we do in life should be done with joy... now that is easier said then done. Last week our pump stopped working and it really started to rain... and our whole building flooded. .. and Jerry and I tried working on the pump to fix it. Jerry did a lot more work then I did and I saw him working hard one day on it and I asked how it was going... he said with a smile... I am doing my best. It is not always easy to have joy but if we look to the future we have with God, I think that in no matter what situation we are in that we can be full of joy.

Let's review, hope is the anticipation of the delivery of God's promise. We hope for eternal life, life with God and a life without pain or suffering. Hope should give us courage, peace and joy.

Ask yourself today...
-Do I have courage in the face of adversity or am I full of fear?
-Am I full of peace about my salvation or do I think that I have to be perfect?
-Am I full of joy?