Living With Hope

Lam. 3:21-24

Introduction:

1. Today is a great day! It is for us who worship here regularly a day of blessing, a day of rejoicing over the blessings God has given us.

2. For me it is a day of great thanksgiving over the great number of people who have sacrificed many hours to get things ready for the day!

a. elders

b. building committee

c. Dixie Austin and 49ers

d. Dan Lee, our historian

e. Jim West who has worked on audio and video

f. Tommy Tolbert, Rusty Jones, fellowship committee

g. Olympic Construction Company

3. today is a great beginning for this congregation, and exciting spiritual things are going on as we focus on spiritual growth and outreach

4. it is encouraging to see so many guests

I. Everyone Needs Some Hope

1. Hope is as necessary to the soul as oxygen is to the body

2. This week one of the things we have heard often is the “hopelessness” the young people at Columbine felt when the shooting started.

In 1965, naval aviator James B. Stockdale became one of the first American pilots to be shot down during the Vietnam War. As a prisoner of the Vietcong, he spent seven years as a POW, during which he was frequently tortured in an attempt to break him and get him to denounce the U.S. involvement in the war. He was chained for days at a time with his hands above his head so that he could not even swat at the mosquitoes. Today, he still cannot bend his left knee and walks with a severe limp from having his leg broken by his captors and never reset. One of the worst things done to him was that he was held in isolation away from the other American POWs and allowed to see only his guards and interrogators.

How could anyone survive seven years of such treatment? As he looks back on that time, Stockdale says that it was his hope that kept him alive. Hope of one day going home, that each day could be the day of his release. Without hope, he knew he would die in hopelessness, as others had done.

Such is the power of hope that can keep one alive when nothing else can.

A number of years ago Duke Univ. researchers performed an experiment to see the effect hope has on those undergoing hardship. Two sets of laboratory rats were placed in separate tubs of water. The researchers left one set in the water and found that within an hour they had all drowned. The other rats were periodically lifted out of the water and then returned. When that happened, the second set of rats swam for over 24 hours. Why? Not because they were given a rest, but because they suddenly had hope!

Those animals somehow hoped that if they could stay afloat just a little longer, someone would reach down and rescue them. If hope holds such power for unthinking rodents, how much greater should is effect be on our lives.

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

4. Hope is Life!!

One night at dinner a man, who had spent many summers in Maine, fascinated his companions by telling of his experiences in a little town named Flagstaff. The town was to be flooded, as part of a large lake for which a dam was being built. In the months before it was to be flooded, all improvements and repairs in the whole town were stopped. What was the use of painting a house if it were to be covered with water in six months? Why repair anything when the whole village was to be wiped out? So, week by week, the whole town became more and more bedraggled, more gone to seed, more woebegone. Then he added by way of explanation:

“Where there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.”

4. Eph. 2:12 those without hope and without God

5. The greatest need of our time is faith, love, and hope! Hope of life, hope that life will improve, hope of salvation, hope of heaven.

II. Things That Bring Me Hope

1. There are some natural events: flowers blooming in spring, sunrise, a newborn baby, a wedding

2. There are some spiritual events that bring hope:

a. a baptism, the birth of a new Christian

b. the repentance of a wayward child of God (Luke 15:10)

c. interested students in Bible class, “Amens” at church

d. campaigns and camps (somebody wanting a home Bible study)

e. a letter or note, phone call or email

3. God’s Sources of hope:

a. the Scriptures (Rom. 15:4) For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.

· when I think of how bad the world is, I remember Noah was righteous and saved his family

· when I have a 9 foot, 9 inch problem, I remember the power of God helped David defeat Goliath

· when I think I’m all alone, I remember God told Elijah that 7,000 had not bowed the knee to Baal.

· when I think people can’t change, I remember Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah

· when I think things are at their worst, I remember that Job had an ending and the last chapter hasn’t yet been written.

· when I walk through a valley, I remember Psalm 23 and the Lord is “with me.”

· when I wonder why am I here, I remember Joseph—God had a plan for his life. I remember baby Moses—God had a plan for him. I remember shepherd Moses—God had a plan for him.

b. The experiences of other believers

· But resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same experiences of suffering are being accomplished by your brethren who are in the world. And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you. (1 Peter 5:9,10)

· No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, that you may be able to endure it. (1 Cor. 10:13)

c. prayer

· Psalm 31:24 Be strong, and let your heart take courage, All you who hope in the LORD.

· Psalm 38:15 For I hope in Thee, O LORD; Thou wilt answer, O Lord my God.

d. Jesus is our hope!

· 1 Tim. 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope;

· Titus 2:11-14 the hope we have in Jesus changes our lives

· 1 John 3:3 And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

e. Heaven is our hope!

· Col. 1:3-6 hope laid up in heaven for you

· 1 Pet. 1:3-5 a living hope by the resurrection

III. We Must Fix Our Hope on Him

1. 1 Pet. 1:13 Therefore, gird your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The director of a medical clinic told of a terminally ill young man who came in for his usual treatment. A new doctor who was on duty said to him casually and cruelly, “You know, don’t you, that you won’t live out the year?”

As the young man left, he stopped by the director’s desk and wept. “That man took away my hope,” he blurted out.

“I guess he did,” replied the director. “Maybe it’s time to find a new one.”

2. Heb. 6:11-20

3. Job 31:24-28 "If I have put my confidence in gold, And called fine gold my trust, If I have gloated because my wealth was great, And because my hand had secured so much; If I have looked at the sun when it shone, Or the moon going in splendor, And my heart became secretly enticed, And my hand threw a kiss from my mouth, That too would have been an iniquity calling for judgment, For I would have denied God above.

Conclusion:

I read about a picture of an old burned-out mountain shack. All that remained was the chimney...the charred debris of what had been that family’s sole possession. In front of this destroyed home stood an old grandfather-looking man dressed only in his underclothes with a small boy clutching a pair of patched overalls. It was evident that the child was crying. We don’t know if anyone died from the fire, but we can only imagine the utter loss. Beneath the picture were the words which the artist felt the old man was speaking to the boy. They were simple words, yet they presented a profound theology and philosophy of life. Those words were, “Hush child, God ain’t dead!”

That vivid picture of that burned-out mountain shack, that old man, the weeping child, and those words “God ain’t dead” keep returning to my mind. Instead of it being a reminder of the despair of life, it has come to be a reminder of hope! I need reminders that there is hope in this world.

In the midst of all of life’s troubles and failures, I need mental pictures to remind me that all is not lost as long as God is alive and in control of His world.

Don’t give up on God—place your trust in Him! Serve Him! Love Him! Wait on Him!

Psalm 43:5 Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, The help of my countenance, and my God.