Borrowed Hope

INTRO: 1. Never know what part of you God really has until you come to the end of yourself.

a. Until you come to the end of your strength, faith, courage, endurance, hope.

b. Until all your resources are gone.

c. Such times test the quality of our relationship with God.

2. Here in our text we find the writer Luke and the Apostle Paul at a time when they had come to the end of themselves.

a. This voyage had turned from bad, to worse, to desperate.

b. There’s few terrors that match the storm at sea.

(Insecurity, constant danger, vulnerability)

c. They had gone as far as throw the precious cargo overboard - but things got worse.

d. They had even taken the tackle needed to sail the ship and threw it into the sea - but things got worse.

d. They had surrendered to the fierce sea, then darkness set in - for days, neither sun or stars.

e. Luke confessed that in vs. 20

“all hope that we should be saved was then taken away”

f. I believe he honestly reflected not only the despair of the 274 other passengers on board, but he included himself and Paul as well.

3. Hope is for the soul what oxygen is for the lungs.

a. Without it our life suffocates in despair.

b. The strength of our existence is the strength of our hope.

c. It’s the final resource we can loose.

(When hope is gone faith, strength, our reason to live is gone)

d. ILL. Prisoners of War taught us that man could loose his dignity and still go on, loose his freedom, his contact with world – but never his hope.

4. What can we do when Hope has run out, when we can’t hold out any longer? - do what Paul did he “Borrowed Hope from God”.

a. Hope he got from a prayer meeting.

b. Hope enough for the entire ship.

c. Hope like Abraham

Rom. 4:18 “Who against hope believed in hope, ....”

d. Hope from the God of Hope - Jesus Christ.

Rom. 15:13 Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.

e. Hope powered by the Holy Ghost.

5. Man’s hope is nothing more than wishful thinking

a. Man’s hope is what got them into this mess.

b. It’s anchored on shifting sands. (Sands of feelings, opinion, sight)

c. Paul goes as far as to say that man with Christ has “no hope”.

6. But the Hope we get from God, it holds the power to carry us through the darkness night.

I. HIS HOPE IS AN ANCHORED HOPE

a. The passenger had lost everything to anchor their hope to – tackle, day light, navigation of the stars, self-defense

b. They were willing to loose anything just to have some hope for tomorrow.

c. But Paul could stand with confidence in the midst of trembling and declare, everything is going to be all right because his hope was anchored beyond the veil, in the throne room of Jehovah.

A. GOD’S HOPE IS ANCHORED IN WHO HE IS.

1. Paul’s hope was no longer in his own strength or even in the strength of this great ship, but it was anchored in the Rock - Christ Jesus.

2. He is our Hope! Our refuge in time of trouble. Our fortress when under attack. Our stronghold in which we can hide. The rock that is higher than I. The Faithful One.

B. GOD’S HOPE IS ANCHORED IN WHO WE ARE.

“'angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve”

1. He let them know that he was more than a follower of God, but he was God’s personal property.

2. ILL. I can recognize the sound of my children cry all the way across the store, and at that time nothing is as important than getting to them – He knows your cry.

3. “and whom I serve” – not only was he there as God’s personal property, but he was there on business for God. Not just relationship, but authority.

4. He was an ambassador of the kingdom of God, therefore God has placed all the resources of heaven within his reach.

C. GOD’S HOPE IS ANCHORED IN WHAT HE SAID.

“I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”

1. Not just “I believe in God”, but “I believe God” – I trust his word.

2. ILL. We judge the quality of a thing by the warranty it carries - but God’s Word carries an Eternal Guarantee

3. Paul let them know that he wasn’t trusting on a prediction, but a promise.

(God guarantor - He’ll see to it)