“From Hopelessness to Christlikeness”
Ephesians 2:8-10 May 22, 2005
You probably think I am going to talk about my awesome Birthday present you, my Church family, gave me. Randy and I am some other friends just got back from an awesome adventure fishing for salmon. We left out of Brookings, Oregon yesterday and had a great time. We saw the redwoods, experienced fishing on the ocean and got to spend some time together. It was a wonderful time. I may talk a little more about that this next week. But the adventure I want to talk about today is the adventure of going from hopelessness to Christlikeness.
I am so blessed. My life is filled with love and joy and laughter. Every day I thank God for letting me live in such a beautiful place. I have been blessed to visit Ecuador, Brazil, the heart of Mexico and South Korea. So I am very thankful for the material things I have. I remember a time when I didn’t have any friends. There wasn’t any love in my life - at least I couldn’t feel any. So I am very blessed and thankful every day for you - my family and friends. I am so privileged to have both my kids living here and all my grandkids. I know that is an unusual blessing in this day and age - and I am very thankful. But it hasn’t always been that way. I remember a time in my life when I considered bailing out of life. I remember living in sin and rebellion and giving into any fleshly desires I felt like. And the result was death. It was separation from God. It was separation from family and loved ones. It was separation from pleasure. I concluded that there was way more pain in life than there was pleasure - so you’re better off dead. I equated life with pain. If that were true - you would be better off dead.
There is a certain amount of logic to that thinking. But it’s the thinking of a hopeless and lost sinner. It doesn’t take in consideration God or His plans for our life. And when God is not in your life - life is very bleak and lonely and hopeless. Without the Creator of life injecting daily does of life - there is only death and pain and emptiness. At this time in my life I had no purpose, no plan, no goals, no aim. I
just drifted aimlessly through life.
Have you ever been there? Have you ever felt hopeless and despair? Ever felt useless?
Life without hope is very sad and painful and lonely. Hopelessness is why people commit suicide. Hopelessness is why people drink and take drugs and medicate themselves with empty pleasures from over eating, to sexual promiscuity. Hopelessness is the root cause of so many of our problems.
So how do we get over our hopelessness? Well, I have discovered the answer. It began with my godly mom. When I came home from Korea, fresh out of the army, I shared with her my negative view of life. I shared with her my empty philosophy of life. She gave me the answer. She said, “Andy, there is a reason you are here. God created you for a purpose. If you will read the Bible - you will discover that reason.” She gave me a glimmer of hope. Maybe I was here for a reason. I got a Bible and began to read.
There it is! The way out of hopelessness is to read God’s Word. I did. First I got one of mom’s old King James Versions of the Bible - and it was like Greek to me. It didn’t make any sense. So I got a Bible written in my language. A newer translation. It was still hard to understand - but I began to read it. I began to read and learn God’s promises. And the more I read - the more hopeful I became. The Bible says,
“…whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” Romans 15:4 (KJV)
The NIV puts it like this: “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.”
Romans 10:17 says, “…faith comes from hearing the message and the message is heard through the word of Christ.”
“You need only to be strong and courageous and to obey to the letter every law Moses gave you, for if you are careful to obey every one of them, you will be successful in everything you do. Constantly remind the people about these laws, and you yourself must think about them every day and every night so that you will be sure to obey all of them. For only then will you succeed.” Josh 1:7-8 (Living)
God’s reveals in His Word that success, faith and hope comes by learning and apply God’s Word in our lives. Really it begins with hope. Everything begins with hope. By hope I mean the “trusting expectation that God will keep His Word”. How do you get that trust and the expectation God will do what He says? By reading His Word. By learning His promises. Only then does hope germinate in our hearts. Only then is the spark of hope lit within our hearts.
So in my adventure of life - I began hopeless. The innocence and ignorance and idealism of youth was replaced with a sad and sarcastic hopelessness. But then I began to read the Scripture and everything changed. I began to read God’s great and precious promises. Peter puts it like this:
“His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of Him… through these He has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world…” (2 Peter 1:3-4)
Do you see through our knowledge of Him, through knowing God’s great and precious promises, so many good things happen. We escape the corruption of the world. We may participate in God’s divine nature. We have hope. We trust and expect God will do what He says. Eternal life. Salvation. Forgiveness. Everything begins as we learn from God’s Word. If you want out of your hopelessness - get into God’s Word. Read His promises. Learn them. Memorize them. Meditate on them. And hopelessness will be replaced by hope.
Well, I would rather be hopeful instead of hopeless - wouldn’t you? But it is bigger than that. It’s more than a feeling. Everything begin with hope. That’s the first thing we need to work on - so the other stuff will come. Hope is the basis of everything else. Hope is the foundation. Hope is the container that all the other good stuff is created in. Hebrews 11:1 Says,
“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb 11:1 (KJV)
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Heb 11:1 (NIV)
“a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life…” Titus 1:2 (NIV)
Do you see that before faith - there must be hope? Faith is built on hope. Faith is the substance or the fabric or the result of what we hope for. Without hope - there can be no faith. And without faith - we can’t please God. The Word says,
“But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Heb 11:6 (KJV)
So we must have the hope or expectation that God will reward us if we diligently seek Him. That we will be rewarded for obeying Him and walking in obedience to His will. If we don’t believe that; if we don’t expect that we will be rewarded for obeying God - we won’t obey God. We won’t walk in faith.
Faith is build on hope. It rests on hope. Faith is created from hope. Hope is the trusting expectation that God will keep His word. But what then is ‘faith’. Faith always has three elements in it.
Belief, trust and action - and is preceded by a revelation of God’s will.
It begins with a fact or truth being communicated or revealed to you. For example, if I reveal to you that I have placed a hundred dollar bill in each one of the Bibles in the pew in front of you - that’s a revelation. Now you have a choice. You can First, believe that revelation or not. If you believe that revelation, you can then trust or not trust that there’s one for you. The second part of faith is trust. If you don’t trust that truth - you will do nothing. Action is the third part of faith. If you believe the revelation and put your trust in it - you will act. In this case, by taking the Bible and looking through it to find the hundred dollar bill. And as a matter of fact, I have come into a little money and I have placed a hundred dollar bill in each of the bibles in the pew racks. You can have it if you find it. I hope it will remind you of the elements of faith. After the revelation of truth - you believe, trust and act. Those of you who didn’t ’have faith” in my revelation - didn’t act. Those who acted by faith received the hundred dollar bills.
In the bible, the great example of faith is Abraham. God revealed that He wanted Abraham to sacrifice his one and only son to Him. Abraham believed God. He trusted God. The bible says he so
trusted God that he believed God would raise his son back to life if he killed him. (Heb. 11:10). So he took his son up on the mountain, bound him, and raised his knife to kill him. In his heart the act had already happened. But God revealed His will; Abraham believed, trusted and acted. He was a man of great faith. And that is why God was so pleased with Him.
Do you want to be a man or woman of faith? Do you want to please God? Here’s how you do it. When God, through the Holy Spirit or His Holy Word, reveals His will to you. Believe, trust and obey. That’s living by faith. There’s a lot of people out there who call themselves Christian’s or God’s people - but who don’t walk in obedience to God’s known will for their lives. It is only the faithful who please God. It’s only the obedient that love God. Jesus said,
“If you love me, keep my commandments.” John 14:15 (KJV)
“The one who obeys me is the one who loves me; and because he loves me, my Father will love him; and I will too…” John 14:21 (Living)
“Anyone who doesn’t obey me doesn’t love me…” John 14:24 (Living)
“Without faith it is impossible to please God”. Without faith it is impossible to love God. Love is the expression of faith. Love is the action part of faith. So in our sequence of faith; in our formula for faith; we go from hopelessness to learning God’s will and promises, to hope; to faith; to love. And love is the greatest of all. (1 Co 13:13) When we enter into that love relationship with God we unlock all those promises. Let’s look at a few.
Eternal life: “And what is it that God has said? That he has given us eternal life and that this life is in his Son. So whoever has God’s Son has life; whoever does not have his Son, does not have life. I have written this to you who believe in the Son of God so that you may know you have eternal life.”
1 John 5:11-13 (Living)
Heaven: “… no mere man has ever seen, heard, or even imagined what wonderful things God has ready for those who love the Lord.” 1 Cor 2:9 (Living)
Success: “And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into his plans.” Romans 8:28 (Living)
So we go from hopelessness, to knowledge of God’s will, to hope, to faith, to love and when we enter into that love relationship - what is the goal? What is God’s purpose? What in the world is God trying to do in our lives? Let’s see what the His Word reveals to us.
“For from the very beginning God decided that those who came to him--and all along he knew who would--should become like his Son, so that his Son would be the First, with many brothers.”
Romans 8:29 (Living)
“But we Christians have no veil over our faces; we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him.” 2 Cor 3:18 (Living)
“…put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.” Eph. 4:24 (NIV)
“Follow God’s example in everything you do just as a much loved child imitates his father.” Eph 5:1 (Living)
When we come into this degenerate world, we are fallen, rebellious, sinful, aimless, purposeless - hopeless. But God wants to change all that. His plan is to regenerate you; remake you; transform you into what He originally planned. A holy, loving child - just like Jesus. This adventure we call life is a process whereby you may be changed into a child of God. And once you allow God into your life - He will keep at it, no matter how painful it may be at times, until you are just like Jesus. From hopelessness to Christlikeness. Are you willing to do that? If so, pray with me:
Dear Jesus,
Thank you for loving me so much you were willing to die for me. Thank you for having so much faith in me - help me to have more faith in you. Thank you for your desire to bring me from hopelessness to Christ likeness. Would you give me the desire to be your child. Would you give me the desire to want to be more like Jesus. I give you permission to do whatever it takes to accomplish that purpose.
In Jesus’ name I pray,
Amen
