Title: A Vision of Hope in a World of Despair
Text: Romans 15:4-13
Thesis: In Christian hope there is no person so lost he cannot be changed by the grace of God and no situation so desperate that God is powerless over it.
Introduction
In the last few weeks I have read three articles that spoke specifically of the American Dream:
1. In an October issue of Time Magazine Fareed Zakaria published an extensive essay titled: How to Restore the American Dream.
2. The latest edition of YourHub (December 2, 2010), under the Your Voice Column, Jack Van Ens contributed his essay which begged the question: Which American Dream?
3. The December 2, edition of the Denver Post ran an essay by Froma Harrop from the Providence, R.I. Journal-Bulletin titled: Redefining the American Dream.
For many immigrants the statue of Liberty is the first thing they see as they arrive on the eastern shore of our country. Lady Liberty is a symbol of freedom and personal liberty. However when we think of “chasing the American Dream” I think we have other things in mind and the notion of freedom also carries with it the hope of prosperity and success, i.e., a better life or the good life.
• Some of the early immigrants came to America to escape religious persecution and to find the freedom to exercise their faith.
• Some, like the Amish, came to America to preserve their culture.
• Some have come to escape the ravages of war. If you saw the Killing Fields you understand why the Cambodians streamed into our country after the Pol Pot regime purged the Cambodian populace.
• The Swedes and the Irish fled disastrous crop failures and potato blights and imminent starvation to come to a land of hope.
In nearly every instance people felt despair and hopelessness so they left their existing circumstances and made their way to America – a place they perceived as a place of hope.
Over time that hope has come to mean a comfortable middle class existence. But today that way of life is threatened.
Zakaria’s article noted, and this is a real time happening, how Steven Rattner, who has worked in restructuring the automobile industry, worked to bring GM Motors and the UAW together. The union agreed that in starting up the new plant they would allow workers to earn $14 per hour, which is half of the normal rate of $28. If the workers would work for $14 per hour GM would build the plant.
But here is the problem. Workers in GM’s Mexican operations make $7 per hour and are just as productive as American workers. Why would a business in the business of making money pay workers $28 or even $14 when they can hire equally capable workers for $7 per hour?
The American worker who earns $14 per hour will earn around $35,000 year which is considerably below the median family income which is around $49,000. The Mexican worker earns approximately $17,000 per year.
And so what is the fate of the American worker? They say the jobs that have gone overseas are not coming back. And it’s Christmas time.
There is a cloud of hopelessness in the air.
But ultimately, the economy is the least of our worries. In fact, when life becomes unbearable because of illness or disease, or tyrannical governmental oppression or social or cultural denigration, or when our children are starving, and or when the circumstances of life become so desperate that we will, as some have, despair of this earthly life, we will long to be with the Lord.
Jesus posed the question once regarding a man who was essentially pursuing the “American Dream.” He asked, “What does it profit or gain a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul?”
God wants us to live well in this life but more than that, God wants us to live well in the next life. And to have no hope of eternal life or heaven is a desperate situation.
In fact Paul stated, “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.” I Corinthians 15:19
The bible reminds us and asks us to remember a sobering truth: “…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. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ.
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household.” Ephesians 2:12-13 and 19
Without Christ we would be up the creek without a paddle. Without Christ there would be no light at the end of the tunnel… and if there was a light it would be a freight train signaling our impending doom.
However, with Christ, the prospects of hopelessness and loss are replaced by hope and gain. And it is God who takes the initiative to reverse our direction and our destiny and transform hopelessness into the hope of eternal life and heaven.
Hope originates with God. God is the God of all hope.
I. Hope is not the product of human invention. Hope originates in God!
“May the God of hope fill you…” Romans 15:13
Advent is a Season of the year when we are reminded to remember that God is a God of hope and that God has give us that hope.
Hope as it is used in this verse speaks of an unseen and future hope. It is a hope that looks forward to a happy outcome. It is a hope that anticipates what God is going to do.
This week I have been watching one of the tires on my car. It seemed to be low on air. Every day I hoped it would not go flat. I am not necessarily a frugal person but I hate the idea of paying to get air for my tires. One evening after work I decided that I needed to stop hoping it didn’t go flat and go put some air in the tire. So I drove to the car wash where they have free air as well as free vacuums. I paid the ten bucks for a best wash and when I exited the wash bay I pulled my car around and into the stall where there is free air… only to have my hopes dashed. The air hose was missing. Now I had a clean car with a nearly flat tire. But all was not lost… I still had hope that I could make it up to Firestone off Wadsworth on 80th. I regularly entrust the care of my car to Mark and his crew and I knew that I could get some free air there. The tire did not go completely flat and I got the air, so you could say my hope had a happy outcome.
But that is not exactly what this text is talking about. The stakes are much higher than 35 psi of air in each tire.
The hope with which God fills us is the hope of the good outcome of eternal life and heaven. In I Thessalonians 4:13ff the bible says, “We do not want you to be ignorant about those who die or grieve like the rest of men who have no hope.” And then the text goes on to promise that one day Christ will come and the dead in Christ will rise from their graves and then we who are alive at his coming will also rise and meet the Lord in the clouds.
So first of all:
• Advent is the celebration of the hope that is ours in the birth of the Christ who saves us from our sins (Matthew 1:21). And second…
• Advent is the Season in which we celebrate our hope of the Second Coming of Christ.
In Colossians 1:27 we are told that it is “Christ in us that gives us the hope of glory.”
Titus 2:13 reminds us that. “We wait for the blessed hope – the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
It is the God of hope who gives us hope and in receiving that hope we experience joy and peace.
II. Hope initiates joy and peace.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him,” Romans 15:13
Joy is not a joy we receive someday… this joy is a delight or a joy associated with this life. It is a joy that we experience in the present.
And this peace is not a peace we must wait for to receive. It is a peace we receive in this life and for this life. It is a peace of mind and heart that splashes over into all of life
The joy and the peace God gives us when we grasp hold of our eternal hope transcends all the sadness and all the unrest of this life.
It is the joy and peace the follower of Christ experiences in Romans 8:28 where in it is our hope that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
In the late nineteenth century Horatio Spafford placed his wife and their four children on a steamer sailing from New York to France. He was to join his family a few weeks later.
The weather was good and the ship made good progress. Then early one morning as the passengers slept they were awakened by two terrific claps like thunder and the ship shuddered and the passageways filled with frightened passengers. The ship had been rammed by the British ship the Lochearn.
Mrs. Spafford saw all four of her children swept away into the sea and then she too was gone… only to wake up later to find that she had been rescued by the sailors on the Lochearn.
Spafford heard of the collision at sea and was desperate with worry and then he received a wire from Wales telling him that his four daughters were lost at sea but his wife was still alive. Spafford then boarded a ship and sailed to join his wife in Wales…
Enroute the captain of the ship announced they were passing over the place where the Ville du Havre had wrecked. And Horatio Spafford found himself literally passing through the dark valley of the shadow of death.
He sat in his cabin grieving the loss of his daughters in light of his faith in God and his eternal hope for his children and he wrote:
When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.
This week I officiated memorial services for two young men… one was 45 and the other 38. I attended the memorial service for an elderly lady as well. And I would never suggest that there is no sense of sadness and loss but I would suggest that the grace of God is greater than our grief. And I do suggest that the joy and peace God gives us is more powerful than the sadness and the chaos this life hands us.
But is not enough that God initiates a hope that gives us joy and peace… God gives it so it overflows and splashes onto others.
III. Hope is not containable but it is contagious.
“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
The notion of overflowing infers abundance or excess. When something overflows there is extra. When something overflows there is a surplus.
Over the years I have pumped a lot of gasoline. I like to insert the nozzle into the gas tank and set the nozzle to pump as much gas as possible without triggering the overload sensor that releases the pump lever and shuts off the flow of gasoline. Then when it does click off, I pull the nozzle out of the tank a bit and see if I can pump a little more gas. Sometimes I find that a surplus of gasoline is not a good thing. An overflow of gasoline may splash onto the side of my car or onto my hands or worse, onto my shoes. A surplus is not a good thing if it means water from a newly watered plant puddles on the surface of a beautiful oak table. A surplus is not a good thing if it means the stool overflows in your bathroom. However we do understand that nature of surplus or overflow.
In the biblical sense the overflow of joy and peace is a good thing. In the biblical context the overflow of things like mercy and grace and joy and peace is good… when mercy and grace and joy and peace overflow and splash onto others that is good surplus.
When our lives are anchored in the sure and certain hope that God is a God of hope and God will work God’s “mojo” so that everything will turn out for the good of those who are called according to his purpose, that is a good overflow.
When our lives are anchored in the sure and certain hope that in this life and beyond this life our destiny is secured in heaven, that is a good overflow.
Conclusion:
“It is easy in light of some of our experiences to despair of oneself. It is easy in light of events to despair of the world. It is easy to drift into a cynical acceptance of a hopeless situation, or a defeated resignation that neither men nor the world will ever be better.”
“It has long ago been said that there are no hopeless situations; there are only men who have grown hopeless about them.”
In Christian hope there is the conviction that that God is still alive and there is no man so hopeless that the grace of God cannot change him and there is no situation so hopeless that God is rendered powerless over it…
In the spirit of the Season of Advent we are reminded that our greater hope in the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and of eternal life and heaven at his Second Coming instills in us a hope and a joy and a peace that overflows and slashes down in this life.
