How God Satisfies our Deepest Needs
“ Where to Find the Hope We Need”
Hope is one of the most essential elements of life.
We can live without many things but we cannot live without HOPE
Hope makes the difference in life
Hope is essential to confront life’s crises
Losing hope is like losing will to live
Tonight, we can all have hope in God’s ability to change our situation
Many people have their hope in something that is false (Money, loved one, education)
There is only one source of true hope and that fountain is God!
Romans 15:13
13Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Is there hope in your family and situation? God is our fountain of Hope.
Psalm 52:9b
and I will wait on thy name; for it is good before thy saints.
When you trust in the Name of God you are trusting in a quality of his character and attributes.
Every time God revealed himself to someone in the Bible, he was revealing through certain revelations. And whenever he revealed himself he was revealing a phase or a piece of His Character.
God is too great to be revealed to one man, one book or even one bible. But he manifested himself in such a way to meet one of their needs. Each manifestation of a revelation of his name is a way of him telling us that He is here to meet our needs.
We are going to be speaking about the Names of God for the coming weeks and each name will reveal more and more how God meets our deepest needs.
If we want to place our hope in God, we ought to place it on His Name.
The Names of God represent his Character of God.
Names used to reveal a person destiny in the olden days.
When God reveals one of his names he reveals His Character and His Purpose toward you.
Say - God is the God of HOPE! – If you are losing Hope, Listen well.
You’ll notice that God often speaks of His Name… And in my name, the name of the Lord… If we know what his name is and what it means we will have hope!
For example at the end of the book of Ezekiel, God reveals himself and say I am the Lord God Shama.
Shama – The Lord is Present – If I know that God is Present, I don’t have to invite him to show up everywhere I go. Where is God going to go? He is already there. “OH LORD WE INVITE YOU!” God doesn’t come and Go.. He is OMNIPRESENT! When God “Show’s UP” refers to the time in which you noticed He was always there.
If we don’t fully understand this concept we will act like orphans saying “When will you tend to me Lord?”, “What time will you show up?” God says, “Where can I move to if I have already filled the Galaxy with my presence.”
Doesn’t it make you happy to know that The Lord your God is PRESENT? God is Present – Sh ama
God is Always Present
1. His Presence is always with me
Isaiah 41:10 (King James Version)
10Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
No matter what happens in our lives, God is always with us. – No need to become desperate. Fear comes from thinking we are alone.
Have you ever been in a situation and not felt His presence? Do you always FEEL the presence of God? I don’t always feel it. When you don’t feel it, you need HOPE & FAITH.
“Parental security a child feels when being held – and not when by mother.”
We don’t have to ever worry about being alone because God is always with us.
Others might leave our side but God promised never to leave or forsake you.
Why are people so desperate? Because people are always being left alone. Death, A friend moves away. Things change. People leave. God always stays! Does that give you hope tonight?
He is with me and he takes care of me.
Psalm 32:8 (King James Version)
8The Lord says, I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.
4 things God wants to do with us continually
q Instruction – We are desperate in life because we are doing whatever we want to do in life. We aren’t speaking to the owner of life.
Is sitting here Sunday nights being instructed worth anything to you? Imagine where you life would be if you were being instructed more often. Some of you are here today but it had been a month.
Why do you think I insist that you take notes? These are the instructions, designs for your life from God for you.
Easy to leave instruction for any old thing. “Oh God you left me alone! You abandoned me” Oh shut up! I have a Plan for you says the Lord.
q Guidance – Teach you the way you should go.
Not everything that looks good is right for you. We all have many decisions in life and God wants to guide you. I am not always going to lead you where you want to go. I just need you to be willing to go where I send you.
q Advice – He was to advise us –through his word and servants.
Never ignore the advice of someone that is growing in spirit or in profession.
God sends us people that are further along in their walk to advice us in our walk.
You want to listen to people that are where you are, but please understand that they are where you are for the same reason you are where you are. Lack if Advise. Everyone loves to give advice, but successful people follow the advice of people that are already where they want to be.
Never close your ears to people that love you and to people that are successful.
q Protection – I watch over you!
There is no one in this place that hasn’t benefited from God’s Protection
Knowing that God wants to do these four things for us give us HOPE!
Lamentations 3:21-23 (King James Version)
21This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope. 22It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. 23They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Religious folks depend on events, moments, church services… they need to FEEL the power. They depend on pure injections. Once anointing ends, you are just a sweaty mess! Maturing means you don’t DEPEND on it, while you enjoy it.
2. His Purpose is WORKING IN ME – This ought to give us hope.
Romans 8:28 (King James Version)
28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
No matter what happens in our lives, the purpose of God is working there. We think that these problems make no sense. We think they are accidents or curses. We think they have no end, This will never change.
We speak like this because we fail to understand that we are place by God on earth with PURPOSE. NO one is an accident on earth. No one is on the earth that God doesn’t have a purpose for. God knew us all before we were born.
In every problem there is a purpose. When we can see the purpose of your situation that give us hope. God will pull something important out of it.
God is always doing something good even in our bad situations. We don’t have to understand everything, just understand God is…
Something to remember:
q We know – People of knowledge – if we don’t know we will blame not Hope
When you know know any problem looks too big. Cup of water – storm – in a drizzle you see a storm – in a problem you see the end of the world.
It is not the end of the world – there is a PLAN!!!
q All Things – All the good regular and ugly. In health and in sickness
q For the GOOD- not for your destruction. God is a good God. Without your failures you wouldn’t be here, without your success you wouldn’t be here.
q Those that love Him – But not for everyone. Only to those that Love God. Do you love God today?
Jeremiah 29:11 (King James Version)
11For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected Hope.
The plans of God are greater than your circumstance.
Philippians 1:6 (King James Version)
6Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:
God is doing a work in your life right now. You might not understand it, but the God that started that good work, will finish it.
3. Our heavenly home is waiting for us.
John 14:1-2 (King James Version)
1Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
We live on earth for a little while, but heaven is our home.
These jars of clay, these labor-some tabernacles of flesh will not keep us for too much longer. But when the same power that resurrected Jesus from among the dead is activated in us, we too shall live in a place called Glory.
ÿ Heaven is not a mental state – it is a celestial paradise
ÿ Heaven is a place of pure happiness
We are temporarily assigned to earth.
Revelation 21:4 (King James Version)
4And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.
No temporal conflict can compare with the coming glory that awaits us.
2 Corinthians 4:17 (King James Version)
17For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; 18While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.
I have been to many funerals. Just this week I was at one. And I have seen the two sides of the coin. I have seen people that die without hope and how the family reacts to them.
But the flip side is the family that has hope. While they cry, they cry because they will be missed. Our pain is not for them, our pain is because we won’t see them for a while, but the one who left are now FREE! HOPE!!!
If you are here today and you have never connected to the God of hope – you are in great danger. You have no hope for the life that is coming.
Living with hope is not the same as living in despair.
Only people that live with hope can confront life’s biggest problems.
Isaiah 40:31 (King James Version)
31But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
(From the teachings of Juan Sarinana)
