Hope

I want to start today by telling a story. This is the testimony of a young lady named Hope Wilson who works with the Salvation Army, and she had a very rough life growing up. Some of us had a rough life growing up didn’t we? I sure know I did! Just kidding, I had one of the most blessed lives growing up that a kid could ask for. But anyways, lets hear her testimony to start out today.

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Even though our backgrounds are very different, we all share some universal challenges.

The size of our worry list tells us something about the size of our God. To be completely honest, before I understood the full scope of God’s intervention in human history, God seemed a lot like Jupiter: big, out there, far away and uninvolved in my life.

It turned out, as I got a clear understanding of who God is, that He was not offended or intimidated by my thoughts about Him.

Because God created us, He has the right to tell us how to live. He revealed His righteous and loving will when He created the heavens and the earth and assigned our place in it. As recorded in the Bible’s Book of Genesis, we messed up. Sin became our standard. I do not refer to sin here as theft, murder, lying, etc. These are sin’s effects.

When I responded to the call to consider God as Savior that day, it was as if someone turned on a light and suddenly, I could see clearly. Before, I saw everyone as evil, and my rebellion was rationalized away. I was not as bad as other people. However, that day I realized that before God, I was not as innocent as I had assumed.

Jesus came to die in my place, to take the punishment I deserved for my rebellion against God. As Jesus died on the cross, the awful weight of all our sins fell on His shoulders. The sentence of death God had pronounced against rebellious sinners was lifted by Jesus’ sacrifice. Jesus died for you and me.

The warring factors in Uganda had names like Uganda National Liberation Front and Uganda Freedom Fighters, but the truth was that they could neither liberate the country nor deliver freedom. The Bible records that Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” Those people were thieves; they stole, killed and destroyed.

What I yearned for was peace, stability, security and freedom. Luckily for me, for all of us, Jesus came that we might have abundant life; that we might thrive and not merely survive; that we might have real freedteom, freedom from known and unknown fears.

Becoming a Christian did not change the facts of my experience. It changed my perceptions and meaning of the suffering I witnessed. It is no longer about who I am or what my life is about but whose I am and what His life was all about. Apart from God, life used to be a lot of suffering with moments of joy.

Life with God is a life of joy with some moments of suffering. I no longer feel alone, afraid, hopeless or powerless. The God of the universe is my Father. And that was the beginning of the abundant life He promises.

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I could probably just fold everything up right there and all of us head home for the day, but you all know I can let you off the hook that easy right?

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a little of what was going on in my life, and I built on that to include similarities of what some of you are facing right now as well.

Honestly, it wasn’t the most uplifting message I have ever had to present, and I was afraid that some of you all would just leave depressed and having more questions than we had answers for. So today I want to bring that back around and give us some GOOD NEWS.

Our anchor verse this week is going to be Psalm 39:7 – “And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You!”

Did you notice the girl’s name from the into story? Hope, her name was hope. If you really want to read her whole story you can find it on the Salvation Army’s website. She talks about growing up in Uganda while faction wars and battle raged. Not something that many of us here can physically relate to, but in other ways, we have been on the same battlefield haven’t we?

But her name is HOPE. Notice I didn’t say that her name WAS hope. Because HOPE is not a past tense kind of thing. HOPE is forward thinking, HOPE has a future fulfillment, HOPE has a promise that can keep us going even in the darkest places that we find ourselves in.