Have you ever lost hope? All three of those families just said hope seemed to be gone. That’s a big deal – that’s hard to speak out loud, but I have no doubt that nearly 100% of us have looked at a situation and wondered if there was any hope.
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Hope seems to go to invisible mode when we can’t see the solution.
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In fact, without question, what we see is the determining factor for what hope we have.
Have you ever tried to see something, but for the life of you, you couldn’t see “it”?
EYE ILLUSIONS: What do you see?
o Stereogram – Skateboard
o Stereogram – Nothing
o Young woman/Old witch
o Empty Tomb
Did you know the people in the Easter story had the same issues we have? Come on, doesn’t that make you feel a little better. It’s like the first time when you realize that your child isn’t the only child that does weird stuff. Or, you’re not the only person who has that weird habit.
The Easter story characters looked at the empty tomb where Jesus’ body has been placed and they saw very different things.
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John 20:1-2 (NIV)
Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”
Mary saw a LIE.
“You’re hopeless!” That’s the first pitch the devil throws when life takes an unexpected turn.
Think about this – every one of us understands this perspective when it comes to life. Some of us only see the lie. Mary Magdalene saw the empty tomb, but what she really saw was a stolen body…a lie.
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When you hear bad news, do you hear the worst news?
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Could the very reason your “hope well” is completely dry be because you’re listening to the lies.
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There are no hopeless situations. There are only hopeless LIES.
John 20:3-7 (NIV)
So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus’ head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen.
Luke 24:12 (NIV)
Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
Peter saw his LIMITS.
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Peter was thinking horizontally, when Jesus taught him to think vertically.
He thought through the lens of his own capabilities…he thought only with logic…that’s why he was confused.
Peter didn’t go the negative, like Mary did. But, he also didn’t go to the positive because the positive would have been that Jesus was actually alive – that wasn’t possible, was it?
Peter was convinced he knew Jesus’ plan – take over the entire government and reign as king – that seemed the be logical and explainable…it was horizontal thinking.
Jesus’ entire life involved a simple teaching:
When our vertical perspective is right, our horizontal perspective will be too.
John 20:8-9 (NIV)
Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)
John saw the LORD.
John wasn’t some super-human, Christ-follower. However what he saw triggered his belief.
In other words:
o The promise Jesus made that He was the Savior for all mankind…
o The promise Jesus made that He would deliver anyone who believed in him…
o John saw the empty tomb as Jesus fulfilling that promise.
o John saw that Jesus delivered on His promise.
Here’s his promise:
Matthew 20:17-20 (NIV)
Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Listen to that last part…on the third day…the day when Mary, Peter, and John looked into the tomb… “On the third day he will be raised to life.!” Jesus’ resurrection from the dead means Jesus beat death. He paid the price for your sins and my sins…because He raised from the dead, we have hope.
I Peter 1:3-4 (MSG)
What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we've been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now!
That’s a promise from God!
When we lose site of God’s promise, we lose site of God’s hope.
o Mary was caught up in the negative…so much so that she forgot what Jesus had promised.
o Peter was caught up in the details…he was thinking horizontally…so much so that he forgot what Jesus had promised.
o John was caught up in the promise…that’s why He had hope. But keep in mind what John saw: Nothing. He didn’t see Jesus sitting in the tomb, just waiting to be noticed.
KEY:
Have you ever forgotten the promise of a “new life”…the promise of having a life and a future?
Have you ever been without hope?
Have you ever had the air knocked out of your day – your week – your year?
Have you ever had an experience that, from every angle, you couldn’t see any hope?
That’s just it…if you forget the promise and rely on hoping in things here…you’re destined for hopelessness. There are two kinds of hope: Hoping for Something vs. Hoping in Someone.
When you’re hoping for some thing, you are hoping for a particular outcome—for a particular circumstance to turn out the way that you want it to.
o Hope I get that job.
o Hope I get that house.
o Hope I get that girl.
o Hope I get that girl, and she gets that job, and we get that house.
Sometimes we hope for something, even though we know it’s kind of a long shot with a remote possibility of happening. I’ve been hoping for a Harley Davidson motorcycle for years.
Sometimes the thing we hope comes straight from our heart:
o Hope she comes back.
o Hope we don’t lose him.
o Hope it’s not cancer.
If we’re hoping in some “thing”, it’s likely that “it” will eventually disappoint us.
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When that happens, the question then is about your deeper hope… about your foundational hope…it’s about the only secure hope you can have when all your other hopes are disappointed.
Who do you see as your hope?
I don’t know what challenge you face…
o Stress at work.
o Marriage that is falling apart, or that has already fallen.
o Son or daughter, somebody that you love, who is struggling.
o Financial pressures.
o Done the wrong thing, or said the wrong thing, or made a mistake that feels so big it could never be redeemed.
Jesus is the only the one who can deliver that hope to you because He delivered on His promise.
We all want hope, but we look for it in so many wrong places…
Jesus is the only one who can deliver you.
Two men were in an art museum and came upon a painting of a chess game.
One character looked like a man;
the other character looked a lot like the Devil.
The man is down to his last piece on the chessboard. The title of the painting is Checkmate.
One of the two men looking at this painting was an international chess champion, and something about the painting intrigued him. He began to study it. He became so engrossed that the man with him grew impatient and asked him what he was doing.
He said, There’s something about this painting that bothers me, and I want to study it
for a little while. You go ahead and wander around. He studied it. His head started nodding, and his hands started moving. When his friend came back, he said, we have to locate the man who painted this picture and tell him that either he has to change the picture, or he has to change the title. I have determined that there is something wrong with this painting.
His friend asked, “What’s wrong with the painting?”
The man said, “Well, it’s titled Checkmate, but the title is wrong. The painter’s either got to change the painting or change the title, because the King still has one more move.”
Just so you’re not confused, this is the Good News:
The King still has one more move.
A little boy named David goes up against a giant, elite soldier named Goliath. David is in trouble. David is just a little boy. He can’t even handle a grown-up’s sword. It looks like Checkmate, but…
The King still has one more move.
A man named Daniel gets thrown into a pit full of lions because he refused to stop praying to his God. The lions are hungry. He’s in there all night. At the first light of dawn, the King calls down to him. Daniel tells him that the lions didn’t touch him and he’s fine, because…
The King still has one more move.
A man named Moses convinces a nation of oppressed slaves to run away from the most powerful man on earth. Pharaoh sets out after them. They’re standing on the shore with the Red Sea in front of them and the greatest army in the world behind them, and the people say to Moses, “Moses, what were you thinking?”
And Moses says to God, “God, what were You thinking?” But
The King still has one more move!
This is Easter Hope. Jesus knew He’d be judged…
He knew He would be whipped and beaten…
He knew He would be mocked and scorned…they hung Him on a cross to die and laid Him low in a tomb to rot the way every human body has rotted ever since death entered this sorry, dark world. And then they said to everybody,
That’s all, folks. Show’s over. Time to go home. Checkmate.
But they were wrong, because…
The King still had one more move!
Psalm 40:17
Even though I am poor and needy; May the Lord. think about me.
You, oh Lord, are my help and my deliverer; O my God, do not delay.
Jesus is the King and He has another move – the 3 families in video trusted the Jesus still had 1 more move…The first words of Jesus after he’d risen from the dead…
John 20:15 (NIV)
“Woman,” he said, “why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”
KEY:
God has never made a person He didn't love,
God has never made a person He couldn’t forgive.
No one in this world HAS TO BE hopeless.
Whatever you face, whether it’s today or tomorrow, the promise of Jesus to everyone who puts their trust in Him in this, there is hope, even when it feels like “Checkmate.” because…
THE KING STILL HAS ANOTHER MOVE IN YOUR LIFE.
You might feel like you’re in checkmate, but Jesus says that if you believe in Him…
HE WILL SAVE YOU.
