Sermon Central
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Hope For The Hopeless
Contributed by Jimmy Haile on Jul 16, 2011 (message contributor)
Summary: Definition Of HOPE = H-aving O-nly P-ositive E-xpectation.
Hope For The Hopeless! July 17, 2011
A few years ago a group of salesmen went to a regional sales convention in Chicago. They had assured their wives that they would be home in plenty of time for Friday night’s dinner. In their rush, with tickets and briefcases, one of these salesmen inadvertently kicked over a table that held a display of apples. Apples flew everywhere. Without stopping or looking back, they all managed to reach the plane in time for their nearly missed boarding.
All but one. He paused, took a deep breath, got in touch with his feelings, and experienced a twinge of compassion for the girl whose apple stand had been overturned. He told his buddies to go on without him, waved goodbye, told one of them to call his wife when they arrived at their home destination and explain his taking a later flight. Then he returned to the terminal where the apples were all over the terminal floor. He was glad he did.
The 16-year-old girl was totally blind! She was softly crying, tears running down her cheeks in frustration, and at the same time helplessly groping for her spilled produce as the crowd swirled about her, no one stopping and no one to care for her plight.
The salesman knelt on the floor with her, gathered up the applies, put them back on the table and helped organize her display. As he did this, he noticed that many of them had become battered and bruised; these he set aside in another basket. When he had finished, he pulled out his wallet and said to the girl, "Here, please take this $40 for the damage we did. Are you okay?" She nodded through her tears.
He continued on with, "I hope we didn’t spoil your day too badly."
As the salesman started to walk away, the bewildered blind girl called out to him, "Mister..." He paused and turned to look back into those blind eyes. She continued, "Are you Jesus?" He stopped in mid-stride, and he wondered. Then slowly he made his way to catch the later flight with that question burning and bouncing about in his soul: "Are you Jesus?"
Do people mistake you for Jesus? Isn’t that what a Christian’s goal should be? To be so much like Jesus that people cannot tell the difference as we live and interact with a world (shopping, working, reacting to others that are serving us) that is blind to His love, life and grace. If we claim to know Him, we should live, walk and act as He would. Knowing Him is more than simply quoting Scripture and going to church. It’s actually living the Word as life unfolds day to day.
You are the apple of His eye even though we, too, have been bruised by a fall. He stopped what He was doing and picked you and me up on a hill called Calvary and paid in full for our damaged fruit. Let us live like we are worth the price He paid.
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There are people who seem to be in hopeless situations!
They have no hope that there situation will ever get any better!
They have no hope in their career, their relationships, in their future, in their finances and many times that ends in deep depression, or even suicide.
We Christians are not immune to these kinds of feelings.
If the truth were told, there are some days when we could just stay in bed and cover up our heads and never get up.
That is why it is so important to have scripture and each other to remind us of what we have!
Definition-HOPE = H-aving O-nly P-ositive E-xpectation.
The very word "hope" is like turning on a light in the darkness.
Psalm 43:5-Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God. (NKJV)
Psalm 43:5--Why am I discouraged? Why so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again -- my Savior and my God! (NLT)
Things aren’t what they should be. Things aren’t what you’d like them to be. Things aren’t the way you would plan them if you were in charge. And so you become despairing and you become disturbed and the psalmist says, "Stop that and hope in God."
1 Peter 1:3-5-Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (NKJV)
