Hope - "In The Pits"

The last few weeks we have been on the topic of hope. It is my hope today to take in all these little bits on the topic we have been hearing about and compress it all together into a neat little package. The result being why this message of hope is so important to you and me.

You do realize that hope is an important topic to know about? In fact I would say it is one of the main reasons why Jesus Christ came to this earth.

You see at one time you and I were in a hopeless situation. Because we were hopeless we need Jesus.

Today I want to take our message of hope one step further. Today I want to talk about sharing the message of hope with others.

But first I want to share with you some of the insights that I believe God gave me on this topic.

As we were preparing for this series we were throwing ideas back and forth from each other. Psalm 40 came to mind as a visual for the world. And it seemed that God put this beautiful image of hope in my heart and I want to share that with you this morning.

Psalm 40:1-3

I waited patiently for the LORD;

He turned to me and heard my cry.

2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

Out of the mud and mire;

He set my feet on a rock

And gave me a firm place to stand.

3 He put a new song in my mouth,

A hymn of praise to our God.

Pit Illustration: The image is that of me in a pit. And it was a pretty deep pit. Up above me I could see light but the sides of the pit were too steep for me to climb. The walls of the pit were covered in dirt and a slimy mess or miry. I too was covered in this slime. I was dirty and unclean.

Then one day someone from the top of the pit yelled down to me. “I see a way out! All you have to do is call upon the name of Jesus.” So I did. And before I knew it I was on top of the pit. For so long my life simply existed in the confines of the pit.

As I looked around on the surface, I realized that being on the topside of the pit wasn’t what I expected it to be. As I looked around as far as the eye could see all I saw were pits. It was like I was looking at the surface of the moon. [Pic. of Moon] Every once in awhile I would see someone else on the surface, but there were mainly pits.

I would walk to the edge of a pit that was next to mine, and look down. I saw someone digging. They were making the pit deeper. The deeper he dug, the dirtier and slimmer it got. I yelled down to him, “You know there is a way out.” “No thanks, he replied back,” and kept on digging.

In another pit there was someone just sitting Indian style with their head dropped downward in defeat. Next to her was a shovel. She had quit digging, when she realized she was stuck. She just gave up. All hope of escape was gone.

Can you see this image in your head? The truth is that you may be one of those individuals in this image.

-You may be the one who is in the pit and is still digging. Making the pit deeper and dirtier.

- You may be the one who has given up hope and is sitting at the bottom.

- You may be the one who is running desperately from pit to pit, shouting “there is a way out!”

- You may be hearing that voice right now. And today is the day that you can start anew and get out of the pit once and for all.

Psalm 40:2

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand.

I believe each of us are somewhere on this God given image.

The Purpose of the message today

I believe the purpose of the message today is to tell you that God not only wants us out of the pit, but he wants to run from pit to pit, person to person shouting at the top of your lungs, “Do you know there is a way out. There is hope for you!”

God wants us out there sharing the message of hope with as many people as possible.

NEED:

Why is it important that we talk about this today? Hope is relevant. Christ came so that we would have a hope because we were all hopeless. It is especially relevant in a world where there are many who find themselves hopeless.