Don’t Lose Hope
TCF Sermon
January 7, 2007
Do you ever read the newspaper, or watch the TV news, and find yourself just shaking your head?
You read of more bombings in the Middle East, or terrorist attacks someplace in the world. You see a story about someplace like Darfur, Sudan, where for five years a conflict there has displaced nearly 2 million people, and killed nearly a half-million people. That’s bigger than the population of the city of Tulsa – all wiped out in five years.
You read about Christians being persecuted in dozens of nations around the world. In fact, I read that an estimated 250 million Christians around the world will be persecuted in 2007, just for following Christ.
Closer to home, you read or hear about some child being abused in some way by their own parent. You see our sex-saturated culture, where behavior that as little as 25 years ago that would have embarrassed anyone, is now celebrated in movies and prime time TV.
Or to get even more personal…and closer still to home…you’ve been sick and cannot get better – you or a loved one is facing an illness that won’t go away.
Or, you have a loved one who’s just spiritually lost – not at all interested in the things of God, and living like it.
Perhaps you’re stuck in an awful job, just keeping your head above water, day by day. Or maybe it’s not a bad job, but it’s just absolutely overwhelming. You have a relationship with someone you love that’s not all it should be, and it’s making you miserable.
You have a sin problem that you cannot seem to overcome, despite months, or maybe years, of trying.
These things cause sometimes physical pain, but often it’s the emotional pain that’s so much more difficult and overwhelming. It’s enough to make you feel hopeless. It’s enough to make you despair. Despair is a loss of hope. Despair is the opposite of hope:
to despair: To be hopeless; to have no hope; to give up all hope or expectation…to be overcome by a sense of futility or defeat.
It’s from the Latin word desperare, which means literally to be hopeless. There’s actually a website called despair.com, where they make fun of those inspirational and motivational posters or calendars with a sort of anti-inspirational, or maybe de-motivational list of products.
Here’s some catchy sayings:
Despair: It’s always darkest just before it goes pitch black.
Adversity: That which does not kill me postpones the inevitable.
Defeat: For every winner, there are dozens of losers - Odds are you’re one of them.
Dysfunction: The only consistent feature in all of your dissatisfying relationships is you.
Problems: No matter how great and destructive your problems may seem now, remember, you’ve probably only seen the tip of them.
You can buy these on calendars, posters, etc. Sorry I didn’t get this idea to you in time for Christmas gift giving.
Despair and hopelessness are defined by scripture as being without God:
Ephesians 2:12-13 (NIV) 12 remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. 13 But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
What a thing to consider! Being without hope goes together with being without God. If you’re without God, you’re without hope.
A Scottish minister once remarked:
“The most profane word we can use is ‘hopeless.’ When you say a situation or person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God.”
In prayer several weeks ago, I believe the Lord gave me a simple message. It was definitely for me, but I believe it’s also a message for you. It’s a message that has been working in my spirit for weeks now, because I’ve struggled with hanging onto hope in recent months. I believe it’s a message to start the New Year. It’s three simple words: Don’t Lose Hope.
That’s the title of this morning’s message, and it’s the Word of God to me. I also believe, knowing what I know about so many of your lives, it’s the Word of God for many of you, too.
So often, in the midst of these seemingly hopeless things, we do tend to lose our grip on hope – if not completely or permanently, at least partially or temporarily.
This morning, I’m trusting that God is going to help me, and help you, strengthen that grip on the hope that only He can bring. Last week, we sang the great hymn which says:
“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness, I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus name. On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.”
So, if my opening thoughts discouraged you, I want to give you hope. I want to give you a hint of where we’re going this morning. One of the things I’ve done the past several weeks is read every passage of scripture on hope I could find. Many of them include the actual word. Some don’t – but clearly emphasize the idea. I did it devotionally, for my own edification and encouragement, and I also studied select passages for this message.
The Word of God is a book of hope. It offers hope for all of life. It offers hope for the sick. It offers hope for relationships. It offers hope for our loved ones, whatever their physical or spiritual state. It offers hope for the most challenging problems in the human condition. It even offers hope for the big picture things we looked at around the world.
Romans 15:4 (NIV) 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
It’s easy to say that our hope is in God. It’s harder to live like we believe it, and draw strength from it. But the Word is absolutely full to overflowing of hope. And the ultimate hope that the Word of God holds out for us is redemption. It’s eternal life. It’s the love of God in Christ which allows those of us who accept that gift of grace and mercy to spend eternity with Him.
Anything we hope for is founded on the hope of glory – the hope of salvation – which is based on the word of truth – the gospel of truth.
The hope of salvation is the basis for any hope we have.
It is the foundation on which all other hopes are built. The surety and certainty of our hope based on Christ means that we can know He is moving, we can know He is working out all things for our good and His heart is for us.
It doesn’t mean that everything will always work out as we wish, but it does mean that everything will always work out for our best, for those of us who are followers of Christ.
So, with that foundational truth as a starting point, let’s begin to look at this critical virtue of hope.
Psalms 33:10-11 (NIV) 10 The LORD foils the plans of the nations; he thwarts the purposes of the peoples. 11 But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.
When we start there, with these verses, we can see God’s hand in the big picture of life – in human history, in world affairs - God is in charge of nations. God’s in control.
It’s one of the most hopeful things we can ever say.
God’s in control. The plans of the Lord stand firm forever.
So, when we see Iran close to acquiring nuclear weapons, we can remember that God foils the plans of the nations. Does that mean that Ahmadinejad will not get nuclear weapons, or if he does, that he won’t use them? I don’t know. But the Iranian leader’s plans for whatever he has will not prevail – God’s plans will prevail. Ahmadinejad’s purpose for these nuclear weapons may be one thing, God’s may be quite another.
So, if God can foil the plans of whole nations, what about the plans of the enemy of our soul?
The answer to that question is also in this Psalm. It’s the same answer: God’s plans stand firm forever. No ifs, ands, or buts. Regardless of who opposes them – whether it’s us, the devil, or some man who is foolish enough to think he’s truly powerful.
The purposes of God’s heart stand firm through all generations. That applies to you, to your children, and to your children’s children. In that we can rest confidently. That gives us hope.
Then, let’s jump down to verses 16-22 to flesh this out some more.
16 No king is saved by the size of his army; no warrior escapes by his great strength. 17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save. 18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, 19 to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine. 20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name. 22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
Here’s a Psalm that’s full of hope. Not just the idea, but using the actual word hope, too.
There are a lot of definitions of hope we could give.
“Hope is faith directed toward the future”…NIV study bible
What hope is not, is what we commonly think of, in the everyday use of the word. That’s reflected by Websters. Hope is defined there as: a feeling that what is wanted will happen.
That’s the way we typically use hope. It has more to do with feelings and wishes. I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. I hope ORU goes to the NCAA basketball tournament again this year. I hope Bill’s sermon is not too long this morning. I hope we get pizza for lunch.
But in scripture, hope is different than that wishful thinking. Baker Theological Dictionary says:
Hope means: To trust in, wait for, look for, or desire something or someone; or to expect something beneficial in the future. Looking with expectation is akin to hoping.
The Complete Word Study Dictionary defines hope as:
The desire of some good, with expectation of obtaining it.
So, there’s always waiting, there’s always confident expectation involved in hope.
Holman Bible Dictionary says that hope is:
Trustful expectation, particularly with reference to the fulfillment of God’s promises. Biblical hope is the anticipation of a favorable outcome under God’s guidance. More specifically, hope is the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future. This contrasts to the world’s definition of hope as “a feeling that what is wanted will happen.” Understood in (the world’s) way, hope can denote either a baseless optimism or a vague yearning after an unattainable good. If hope is to be genuine hope, however, it must be founded on something (or someone) which affords reasonable grounds for confidence in its fulfillment. The Bible bases its hope in God and His saving acts.
Let’s highlight a few key things from this last definition. First, “hope is the confidence that what God has done for us in the past guarantees our participation in what God will do in the future.” That brings us back to our foundation. What God has done for us in His history of redemption provides us the guarantee that we’re part of His plan for the future.
So, if we apply that to our litany of problems:
- relationships
- illness
- the spiritual state of our loved ones
- challenging jobs
- any kind of suffering, physical or emotional
whatever the cause, we can be absolutely confident that because God has proven His love, His sovereignty, His care for us in the past, because He has given us the gift of eternal life through Jesus, we can have a Biblical hope that He will do what’s best for us and for those we love in whatever situation we face.
We see the contrast between the Biblical hope, which is sure and certain, and the common understanding of hope, which is wishful thinking, often with no foundation for the wish to stand on.
And that’s why we can affirm this part of this definition of hope:
If hope is to be genuine hope, however, it must be founded on something (or someone) which affords reasonable grounds for confidence in its fulfillment. The Bible bases its hope in God and His saving acts.
Even atheists, in their most candid moments, recognize this.
A little over a month before he died, the famous atheist Jean-Paul Sartre declared that he so strongly resisted feelings of despair that he would say to himself, “I know I shall die in hope.” Then in profound sadness, he would add, “But hope needs a foundation.”
Hope needs a foundation – a reasonable grounds for confidence in its fulfillment. There’s a story
From Parade magazine about a self-made millionaire, who greatly changed the lives of a sixth-grade class in East Harlem. This man had been asked to speak to a class of 59 sixth-graders. What could he say to inspire these students, most of whom would drop out of school? He wondered how he could get these predominantly black and Puerto Rican children even to look at him. Scrapping his notes, he decided to speak to them from his heart. "Stay in school," he admonished, "and I’ll help pay the college tuition for every one of you." At that moment the lives of these students changed. For the first time they had hope. Said one student, "I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling." Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school.
Before that, it’s likely that for many of these 6th graders hope for college was only wishful thinking. But this millionaire gave them hope. He gave them something to look forward to, as well as a foundation for their hope. The student said “I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me.”
That helps us identify another aspect of hope. There’s no need for hope when you already have something. The very idea of hope always implies expectation, looking forward, waiting. Sometimes, that’s why hope is difficult to hang on to. We’re either unwilling to wait, or wait long enough, or we feel as if we’ve waited so long, God must have let us down.
We feel that way sometimes, don’t we? Be honest with yourself. We often see in scripture the phrase, “How long Oh Lord?”
Waiting for something we hope for is part of the human condition. Sometimes waiting a long time is also part of the same human condition. And waiting can cause us to question God.
Now, I think this is a pretty normal response. We ask why. We ask how long. We begin to wonder if God’s really going to do anything. The people of Israel wondered that a lot. They wondered when the Messiah would come. He was called the Hope of Israel. It implied waiting. It implied expectation.
The people of Israel also wondered about more down to earth things, such as, when would God deliver them from their enemies?
Of course, they were subject to their enemies in the first place, because of their sin and God’s judgment on them, but that’s another story. They still waited on God. They still hoped.
How often have we wondered if God really sees what’s going on? If He does, how can He make us wait so long for His deliverance, from whatever it is that afflicts us?
Isaiah addressed this in chapter 40, beginning with verse 21. It’s a longer passage, but it helps us with some things we’ve looked at.
Isaiah 40:21-31 (NIV) 21 Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? 22 He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. 23 He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. 24 No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. 25 "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One. 26 Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the LORD; my cause is disregarded by my God"? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
Two things I want us to notice here. First, here’s again this reminder that we follow a great big God who’s absolutely in charge of everything. Do you not know? Have you not heard? We’re like grasshoppers. He’s the One who brings princes and the rulers of this world to nothing.
Saddam once thought he was king of his little universe. Last week He was hanged like a common criminal. The same God who names the stars – each of the billions of stars, is the One in whom we hope.
But this same mighty God also promises us strength that He’ll provide. Even though He can call each of billions of stars by name – (how many of us have trouble naming everyone here this morning?) – even though rulers can be blown away like I might blow away a feather, despite that awesome power, and here’s the second thing I want to notice from this passage, God is intimately involved in our lives.
My way, my life, my problems, my concerns, are not hidden from God. Not only does He see them, He’s working on them, and in them. My cause is not disregarded by God. I may not be able to see or understand how He’s working - Isaiah says “His understanding no one can fathom.” But He is working. And in the meantime, He says to me – wait.
And in the waiting, wait expectantly – hope in me. And in the waiting, He will give me strength for the wait. I get tired of waiting. But He never gets tired, and I can draw from His strength. Those who hope in the Lord will gain new strength.
Here’s where we see the clear connection between hoping and waiting, because many of you no doubt remember this verse saying “those who wait on the Lord” will gain new strength. One translation says hope, another says wait. But both are correct, because hoping inevitably includes waiting (and if we’re waiting on the Lord, what are we waiting for? We’re waiting for Him to act, and we’re waiting with expectation, and that‘s the very definition of hope).
Believers Bible Commentary says:
It is absurd to think that He cares less for His people than for the stars which He guides so unerringly.
We have to recognize how hard the waiting is. Sometimes it’s an absolutely bitter experience.
Lamentations 3:19-26 (NIV) 19 I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. 20 I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me.
Now, that sounds to me amazingly like a negative confession. But it’s real. And that’s OK, because God is big enough to handle our very real emotions.
Sometimes we stop with the very strong feelings of verse 20: “I remember the afflictions, and my soul is downcast.” He’s saying – “hey, I’m hurting. I’m down.”
But Jeremiah, the writer of Lamentations, doesn’t quit there. And neither should we. When we stop and stay there, we’re headed toward despair, if we’re not already there. We’re losing hope, or we’re already hopeless. But we can go on:
21 Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: 22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. 23 They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. 24 I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." 25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; 26 it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
Because of His love we are not consumed.
His compassions never fail. His compassions are new every morning. We don’t have to rely on yesterday’s mercy and compassion from God. We can draw on His fresh compassion, His fresh mercy – today! He’s faithful to provide what we need when we need it.
Jeremiah called this to mind. He reminded himself of it. We can too. And we can remind each other. David encouraged himself in the Lord. We can too.
1 Samuel 30:6 (NASB77) 6 Moreover David was greatly distressed because the people spoke of stoning him, for all the people were embittered, each one because of his sons and his daughters. But David strengthened himself in the LORD his God.
How can we strengthen ourselves in the Lord? Well, we already saw how the Word of God is meant to be a tool to give us hope. I’ll read that passage again:
Romans 15:4 (NIV) 4 For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
But sometimes that’s just not enough, is it? Just reading the Word is not enough. Just as reading the Word alone is not enough to make us wise. Reading the Word is not enough to make us righteous. It takes the activity of the Holy Spirit to make us wise, even though God will more often than not use the scriptures as His agent. It takes the Holy Spirit to make us righteous, even though, again, the Word of God is often the tool God uses to convict, admonish, and correct and train us for righteousness.
So, my prayer as we prepare to close is that we recognize that just as faith, love, any other thing is a gift from God, so is hope.
Romans 15:13 (NIV) 13 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope - (how?) - by the power of the Holy Spirit.
2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 (NIV) 16 May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, 17 encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.
If it’s a gift of His grace, if it’s an action of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, then there’s not a thing we can do to work it up. The only thing we can do is ask, and receive.
I think there are many of us here this morning who are barely clinging to hope. Some are on the verge of losing hope, some may have lost hope. Some may be on the roller coaster of having hope one day, and the next day the circumstances of life batter that hope and it’s lost, or nearly lost, again.
Yet, this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. God’s compassion never fails. His mercies are new every morning.
The Psalmist in Psalm 27 knows that without hope, and not just hope, but specifically hope in the Lord, there’s nothing but despair.
Psalms 27:13-14 (NASB77) 13 I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the LORD In the land of the living. 14 Wait for the LORD; Be strong, and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the LORD.
We can all say that sometimes, can’t we? I would have despaired unless I believed. And though the foundation of our hope for anything in this life is firmly built on the hope of salvation through Jesus Christ, hope in Him applies to this life as well.
I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord – where? - in the land of the living. The land of the living. I think that means this life.
Back to our first passage of scripture - Psalm 33: verses 20 and 21:
20 We wait in hope for the LORD; he is our help and our shield. 21 In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.
And then verse 22 is my prayer for me and my prayer for you.
22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD, even as we put our hope in you.
This morning, if you’ve lost hope about anything important to you, if you’re on the verge of losing hope, or if you’re on the hope roller coaster – having hope for a time, then heading toward the hopeless end of the track, let’s pray together this morning and ask God for His wonderful gift of hope.
