You Can Allways Have Hope!

You can always have HOPE!

Romans 15:13 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The title of my sermon has been the pun of joke that I have heard over the last 14 years. “You can always have Hope”. One of the benefits that you receive with a wife whose name is Hope. And that is what I want to share with you this morning, you too can always have Hope. Not that I am going to share my wife, nor that you need to have a relationship with someone who shares her name. But the Hope that I want to share with you is as our text states, “The God of hope that you may abound in hope”.

Hope is something that we all need. Nothing is more depressing than what you consider a hopeless situation. But I am here to tell you that there is no such thing as a hopeless situation with a God of hope.

We need to have the attitude of a young boy that I heard of. A man approached a little league baseball game one afternoon. He asked a boy in the dugout what the score was. The boy responded, "Eighteen to nothing--we’re behind."

"Boy," said the spectator, "I’ll bet you’re discouraged."

"Why should I be discouraged?" replied the little boy. "We haven’t even gotten up to bat yet!"

That young man had hope and so should we. Maybe you are here this morning and you think your situation is hopeless. Maybe it is a problem in your job, your boss may be overbearing. Maybe it is a problem within your family; a wayward child, a bad marriage, an aging parent. Maybe your problem is in your finances; a loss of a job, the bills coming due. No matter what situation you may be facing, both now and in the future, God promises us that there is HOPE!

Now I assume there might be some doubters here today, who claim to be realist? In their minds there is a time to just throw in the towel and give up. And I understand and I am not saying that you will get EVERYTHING that you hope for. Hope is not some wish list that we get to pick and choose. Everything has to be done according to His will. Who wouldn’t hope to win the lottery or come into some large sum of money? But maybe God knows that if He would allow that then it could make us lose sight that it’s all God’s money anyway and the money could hurt our relationship with Him. We could become more dependant on ourselves and less dependant on Him.

So this morning let me give you just a few of the things that we can ALLWAYS have hope in the right relationship with God. The word hope is found in the Bible 137 times in 128 different sections. So God has lots to say about this subject. The first thing we can have hope in is…

Hope for the Hurting

There are many people, maybe even some who are here who are hurting. Something or someone is causing you pain. Listen to what God’s words tell us…

Romans 5:1-5 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

It states that we have a peace and not just any peace, but a peace with God. It is not the peace that means the absence of war or fighting, But a peace of being reconciled to God and a peace of His promises.

There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them. It states in verse 2, that is we are a Christian, we can REJOICE, which in the Greek means to boast, and HOPE means “expectation”, of God to bring glory, no matter what situation we are in.

The word glory here is the same Greek word that is translated REJOICE in verse two. Christians can rejoice not only in their future hope, but also in their present troubles.

Tribulations refer here to physical hardship, suffering, and distress. Perseverance means endurance. Trails and tribulation produce endurance when we EXERCISE our faith during those difficult times. Everyone here should know that when you exercise, it means that you get stronger.