Amen. Good morning church. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and Merry Christmas. As pastor, as you said, it's Christmas time. There's nothing after Thanksgiving. So we might as well just celebrate. I don't know, if you're the type that's like, oh, no, we have to wait for the Christmas music. As the day after Thanksgiving, right, Carrie is on full blast, right? Like we all know, this is just how it goes. And it's not just culturally, but it's also in the church. This season of Advent really is a time for us to prepare our own hearts for the coming of Jesus. Now us as New Testament believers, we know that Jesus has come. And so we live in that reality. And this is the time for us to focus specifically, on the truth that Jesus has come to us and in the Incarnation, he has come to the earth, we are going to be in Luke chapter seven, this morning, you can turn in your Bibles or turn on your Bibles to Luke chapter seven. But we're going to be there. And we're going to start a new series this morning. And this series is called here a few weeks ago, I felt like the Lord was kind of speaking that we need a theology of here and not just there, that we don't need you to think that God is here with me or God is there when I get what I want, when my life is what I want to look like and where I'm at where I want to be. But God is with me here, here in the mess, that Emanuel means God with us. And we're going to take a look at the places where Jesus has embodied Emanuel the promise given to be the Messiah, and to bring exactly what we need to us, not just there where we want to be. But here exactly where we are. We're going to be in Luke, chapter seven, verse 11, through 15, Luke, chapter seven, verses 11, through 15. And it says this. Soon afterward, he went to a town called Nain. Jesus did and his disciples, and a great crowd went with him. And as he drew near to the gate of the town, behold a Woman, behold, a man who had died, was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the towns with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her. And he said to her, Do not weep. Then he came, and he touched the beer, and the bearers stood still. And he said, Young man, I say to you arise, in the dead man sat up, and began to speak. And Jesus gave him to his mother. What I want to talk about for the next few minutes that were together three things one, why you should have hope? To why hope is hard. In three, why hope should have you. I want to title this message, really simply hope is here. Hope is here. Would you pray with me for a minute? Lord Jesus, we love you. And God, we're expecting you to do something special here right now. Today, Lord, we affirm the authority of Scripture over our lives in this moment, and say, you speak to us. We welcome the Spirit of God and misplace here, not just there. When our lives look like what we want them to look like, but the Spirit of God here, would you speak to us? Would you glorify yourself? God, would we know you and be known by you? Lord, if you're not glorified in any other place, would you be glorified in this place? And if you're not glorified in any other heart, how would you be glorified in this heart? Father, we love you so much. In more importantly, you love us. Holy Spirit. Would you empower us to live look in love? More like Jesus today than we did yesterday? Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Advent, hope is here speaking about that Jesus Christ in the person has now fulfilled the promise of being Emmanuel, God with us. And because of that reality, now here is where we can worship and here is where we can have hope not just they're here. Now, hope It is here. And this is important because if we're asking the question, why should you have hope? The answer is because we serve a God of hope. And if you are a follower of Jesus, something is either something good is either coming now or in the life to come. And so if you love Jesus, and if you are his guests what something good is coming, so you can have hope. Hope is here. Because he promises as a God of hope that now we can have hope. And how many of us know that inherent in hope is expectation, an expectation that something is going to happen. And if I could exhort this for just a minute, this word expectation, I want all of us in this room to have an expectation in this season, dare I even say in this room, that the Lord is going to do something in your life? Why? Because Advent the entire theology that Jesus has come to us means that wherever the presence of God is hope is, and if Hope is the expectation that something good is coming, I want you to raise your expectation that God is going to do something special in your life. Now the issue is when we wait and just assume that God will do something special without any of our participation at all. There was the people that did that. Jesus in the scriptures, he goes to a town, Nazareth, where he grew up. And the scripture say that when Jesus went back to his hometown of Nazareth, he could not do many miracles there because of their unbelief, their lack of faith, which means that Jesus who was doing miracles, walking on water, healing people with a word, touching beers, and people in coffins, and people being raised to life, who could who could call them a storm with a word who would touch lepers and they would be cleansed, that Jesus could not do many miracles in the place where there was not an expectation of him. So some of us think, Oh, well, God's just going to do something in my life, because I'm around church, I'm around him. I know we need an expectation, a faith that God is going to do something in this Advent season. Faith is the substance of things hoped for. Hope comes first. And then faith is birthed out of hope. And this teaches me that Jesus when it comes to Nazareth, is that before you can receive from Jesus, you first need to receive Jesus. If you want something from him, make a place for him to be welcomed in your life. You know, how you do that is through faith is through believing His promises. And if we want to believe if we want to receive something from him, we first need to receive him. Well, I believe that sometimes we don't even receive the full blessings that God truly has for our lives because we don't have the faith to receive them. We're not expecting God to do anything in our lives. And us as New Testament believers, we know Jesus has come, Amen. We're thankful that God is here. And Advent is all about the season where God came to us in the person of Jesus, I want to set an expectation that he's going to do something is the hope is meant to lead to faith. And if I could maybe define hope, I would say that hope is living like a God is working.
Despite any circumstance, The Good, the Bad, the Ugly, when you love life, when you hate life, when you feel like everything's falling apart, or when you feel like you just got a raise in your family is doing great, and your kid is getting a 4.0 and you just everything is perfect, every single season. Hope is living, like God is working. And if God is working, then I can have hope that something good is coming. Faith or hope simply living like God is working, that God is actually doing something right now in your life. He hasn't left you alone. He's not this impersonal force who exists somewhere out there who sometimes interacted with people 1000s of years ago, but has nothing to do with my life now. No, he is a personal being who wants to influence and affect your life for the greatness of his name. And when we have that hope that God is working, we start to live differently. Living like God is working and hope is not just simply a optimism or a positivity. It's not just simply wishing that something gets better than how it currently is. And there are plenty of us in this room with for being honest, who don't have a lot of hope. Pour dreading the future who don't believe that things will get better or that things will change or that truly anything good is coming in our lives. And that's exactly where we find this woman. This woman is in a place where She's hopeless. She's saying I'm having a funeral for her only son, and not just a funeral for her only son, but she's also a widow. Now, if you know anything about antiquity, in this time, women really had no honorable or respectful way to provide for themselves. And so what this meant is that they had to rely on their husband to provide for them or they had to rely on their sons to provide for them if their husband had passed away. Now, if this woman was a widow, she had no husband to provide for her. And if she had one son, and now this son was dead, that means that this woman was completely destitute. She had no hope. She had no hope that anything good was coming. And as much as this story is a funeral for the son, it's also a funeral for the woman. Because she said, Where am I to go now? She's currently burying her last hope. You've been in that place where you're burying your last hope. You don't know what else is going to come next. You don't know if you have anything left for what is next. It's where we find this woman. And as much is this whole story, is a miracle for God raising a man to life. We also believe that this is a miracle of hope. Is the only Jesus in this circumstance, could raise somebody to life, and have that be the adjacent miracle. Why? Because I believe that the true miracle that God is trying to give to this woman is not just I'm going to raise your son to life, it's I'm going to give you a new hope. And that's what Jesus is doing for this woman. Right here. See, God wants you to have hope. In Romans chapter 15, verse 12, through 13, it says this. And again, Isaiah says, the root of Jesse will come and even he who arises to rule the Gentiles in him will the Gentiles have hope. May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that the power of the Holy Spirit, you may abound in hope. See, the prophet Isaiah prophesied this reality to the people of God, 700 years before it came to pass, he said that there will be a hope that comes from the root of Jesse, that actually is the father of Davis, who then actually is in the line of Jesus, that Gods that I'm preparing they hope now that you will have in the future God is saying before you even need hope I've already prepared it for you. And now you understand that Jesus is the fulfillment of the hope that Isaiah had been prophesying about 700 years earlier, how many of us are encouraged that God prepared hope for you in advance that you didn't even know you needed it and God provided it for you in this type of hope? It's not a worldly hope. This is a godly hope a worldly hope is almost synonymous with wishful thinking. That is, I hope that the weather is good tomorrow. I hope that my team wins the Super Bowl. I hope that next year is better than this year, we have this wishful thinking that something uncertain will become certain. But that's not a godly hope. A godly hope is not wishful thinking based off of no prior track record. A godly hope, isn't saying, I hope that an uncertain thing becomes a certain thing. A godly hope is saying, I apply certain things to my uncertain things. This is what Roman says. He says, I do this so that you might abound in hope from the God of hope. What this means is that a godly hope truly is this. I will apply the promises of God to my Difficult and Uncertain situations. Because why a worldly hope is saying I will now try and wishfully think that a uncertain thing becomes a certain thing, but a godly hope says I apply the certainty of God's promises to the uncertain areas of my life. That's a godly hope. And when we focus on a godly hope in a hopeful way that God has shaped us that means that now we are bound in hope I believe that some of us have an atrophied hope rather than an abounding hope. You know what atrophy is right? It's when something from lack of use becomes unusable, unnatural, and ineffective. And because of one thing or another, we have not used the godly hope that God has provided from us from the God of hope. And therefore now we only use it in case of emergencies. And then we try and pull it out. But it has become so atrophied that now our hope, which was supposed to abound now is atrophied. It has become ineffective, unnatural. And it doesn't apply to any area of our lives except for emergencies. But this isn't the kind of hope that God wants you to have. God wants you to have an abounding hope, one that overflows from the inside of you, one that is in excess one that isn't just in case of emergencies, but one that actually you can distribute to other people. God wants you to abound and hope there's something that we say here. And it's simply this that if you need some you can borrow some from me. Now, I'm not talking about money or cars or vacations. I'm not saying that. I'm saying if you need some hope, borrow some from me. Why? Because the God of hope has made me a bound in hope that now I am able to give hope. How many of us know that the people out there need hope. And if we come in, we sit in rooms like this with people like this and say the word was great. The worship was great. The doughnuts were great. The children's ministry is great. I'm so happy and I start to get welled up in myself, but never a bound in hope to be able to give hope they will remain hope lis. Now, I come in here with a different mission, not just for me to be filled so that I can be happy, but that I might abound in hope I might have excess hope not just in case of emergencies, not just so I can use it and it feels atrophied. But I might have more hope than I know what to do with. And I can then say to somebody if you need some borrow some from me. God of hope wants you to abound and hope. You see where the presence of God is hope is and what does hope do. Now we look in the scriptures and we can see that hope. Truly it creates boldness because we know in Second Corinthians 312 Since we have such a hope now we are very bold hope also creates a joyful praise in Romans five two it says we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Hope also produces patient endurance that says in Romans chapter eight, verse 25, it says but if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience. Hope also produces a confident assurance. Hebrews six verse 19 says we have this as a sure and steadfast anchor for the soul, a hope that enters into the enter into the inner place behind the curtain. You know what hope does ultimately hope it makes you resilient.
Hope makes you in a place where life doesn't just happen to you anymore. You happen to life. Hope it makes you in a place where now you're not just the victim of things that happen to you. Now you can respond in a way where life is not overcoming you. You are now overcoming life. Hope is something that creates something on the inside of you that makes you not fall down when life hits you in the face. But you can bounce back up hope is this thing like a beach ball filled with air when you try and submerge it underwater. All it wants to do is pop right back up. Hope is the thing that when life is trying to throw its best shot at you, you're resilient and you throw your best shot back. Hope it makes you resilient and in light of hope. Now what we do is we have an expectation that God is up to something it's an anchor for our souls, an anchor for our souls. That's what a godly hope truly is. And sometimes we have issues because we oftentimes if we're being honest have hope that's more like a kite than it is like an anchor. The hope that is completely dependent on circumstances. If the weather is right if the situations are right if this is right and if some things don't happen but if this does happen and we start to base our life off of depends on the circumstance depends on the situation. How am I going to respond? And this doesn't mean that hope is easy, but it doesn't mean that hope is necessary because Christians are not unique and what we go through we are unique and how we go through it. God does not promise that you will have a better life full of free of problems and full of blessings. If you follow Him know, one of the promises that Jesus actually makes is that in this world, you will have trouble. That's a problem. Jesus also says, if they hated me, they will hate you. Now, we will like claiming those promises because they don't make us feel good. They're not the Christmas message that, oh, you're gonna have trouble in this world. And they're the world's gonna hate you because they hated him. That's Those are fun Christmas verses, but those are promises from our Savior nevertheless. And Christians aren't unique and what we go through, we're unique and how we go through it. So now, my hope is not like a kite that is swayed by the wind and the waves. And depending on how life goes, I go, now I have a hope, like an anchor. This now doesn't depend on my circumstances, this anchor settles me in all circumstances, where now whatever life throws at me, I know that I'm not going to be pushed off course, I'm not going to fall out of place, I'm going to be exactly where God needs me to be not because I've set my hope like a kite. That depends on my circumstances. But I have a hope that is hidden behind the inner curtain, like an anchor that settles me in every circumstance. We need a hope like an anchor, a hope that settles our soul in a way that nothing else does. Jesus promises that we will have trouble. But if you know the verse, finish it with me, but take heart, because I have overcome the world. Yes, you will have trouble in this world. But the Lord says to you today take heart have hope, because he has overcome the world. See, this is why we need to have hope. But what happens when hope is hard? Why is hope? Hard? I believe the reason why I hope it's hard very practically is because some of us have a damaged hope. We've hoped before and it didn't work out like what we wanted it to. And now we don't want to hope again. Because I felt the pain of hoping for something to change that never changed. And now it feels too scary, too painful. To extend my hope. Again. I know the pain of what it causes me to hope for something and not have it come through. And now I wonder if hope is really worth it at all. That's the woman. Me she has clearly hoped. She was doomed to a life of suffering from here on out. And now she's sitting in this place figuring out I'm burying my only son, I've no one to take care of me. I don't know where I'm going in life. And she was essentially burying her last hope. And this woman, undoubtably went through hope, the hope of doctor's visits, the hope of counseling, the hope of money, the hope of probably prayer, the hope of of God will do something even when I can't do anything. Then she gets to the point where she has undoubtedly come to terms with his death. And now she's planning a funeral. Now she's walking him to his grave. Now she has to deal with all of the grief and now she's burying her son, undoubtably this woman's hope was tired. And maybe that's some of us today. We have a damaged hope that's tired. I've done that before. It didn't work. So now it's too painful to hope again. And this is the lie of hopelessness. That how things are is how things will always be. That's the lie of hopelessness when we have a damaged Hope is the way that things are is the way that things will always be nothing's going to change. I tried that before and it didn't work. Now I'm here and I'm coming to terms with the end. The thing that we think is that we think that we're protecting ourselves. That's what we think it's safer to think this way than to think that way. And if you're wondering like how do you know if you have a damaged hope I would say this, you know you have a damaged hope. When you qualify faith. When someone speaks faith into your life, and you have to qualify it when somebody speaks hope into your life and you can't receive it. When somebody tries to give you the truth of Scripture over your life and you always have to reason it away. That's how you know you have damaged hope is when you have to qualify every time faith tries to enter into your heart. We think it's safer. We say no, it's why it's wisdom. I'm, I'm going to be wise. And I'm not going to hope that way. Because I've tried that before. It's logical. Let's pay attention to the facts. Now let's think about what's actually in front of us. We think that we're being realistic. No, I know what life is. I've tried that before. I'm not going to go down that road anymore. We think that we're actually protecting ourselves. Because we think this is the lie of hopelessness. How things are is the way that things will always be I've tried that before and nothing changes. We consider this with our families. No, I've tried that before. My marriage is just this way. It's just how it is. I've tried that before with my family. This is just who we are. I've tried that in my job. I'm just going to be financially unstable for the rest of my life. I tried that with my addiction. It didn't work, then it won't work. Now, I've tried that with my health, and with my wholeness, I am who I am. In the lie of hopelessness will say how things are is how things will always be. We've tried it before, and nothing has changed. And people have asked me before, do you think that people can change? And if you're a follower of Jesus, the resounding answer should be yes. It's almost like a foundation of our faith, that people can change. And that things can change. That God made us what we weren't, and he made us into who we are. I'm not sure if you can be a fully devoted disciple of Jesus and not believe that things can change. Because we serve a God of hope, who has made us a bound in hope. It's kind of a bedrock of our faith to change is because when you look in scriptures, you find that Abraham was impatient. You find that Moses had an anger problem, you find that Jacob was a liar that Gideon was afraid that Hannah was barren that Rahab was a prostitute that Hannah couldn't do anything that Jesus was dead. And then all of a sudden, we get to this place where I'm like, Whoa, let me remember where the presence of God is. Hope is. And now I realize, if God is a God of hope, I have to believe that how things are is not how things will always be. I'm gonna refuse to believe the lie of hopelessness that comes from a damaged hope. You know, the first words that Jesus said to this woman, is do not weep. And it's interesting that those are the first words, Jesus says, because Jesus knows he's about to raise the sun. But that's not the first thing that he does. The first thing that Jesus does before he raises the sun and takes away the woman's problem, what Jesus does is he goes to the woman, and he tells the woman do not weep.
What I understand about this scripture, and what it teaches me about God is that oftentimes God will care for you before he cares for your situation. He'll come to you before he comes to your problem. Why? Because he can care for you, and he can help you. And if he doesn't have the situation, then he knows that you will take the new you into the new situation. But if you just helps the situation, and he doesn't help you, then you will take that same old you into a new situation. But if you have a new you in a new situation, he knows that that new you will be able to take the new situation with hope. So he wants you does is that he cares for you, before he cares for your situation. If you're wondering, where has God been? In my situation? If you ever feel like God is late to helping you in your problem, just consider he might be busy helping you. You might think that God might say that your problem is secondary to you. If you're saying God, where are you? He might be with you. He says Do not weep to this woman. See, Christians have a hope that even if the situation doesn't change, I change. That's the hope that we have. That God is changing things. Because what's the alternative? That God isn't working? That God is just sitting there idle in your life? That God is not moving towards you and His goodness at all times? What's the alternative? If to God working, God's not working, because my scripture tells me that God works all things together for the good of those who love Him, and are called according to His purposes, the Scripture teaches me that there is actually a purpose in every single pain, that God can actually still bring Beauty from Ashes. And he can still make a beautiful thing come from a dead thing, my scripture and my Bible in my God and His faith, when his teaches me that no matter what is happening, even if my situation doesn't change, I can change. Because God is always working. Because what is hope, living, like God is working. If God is working in my life, then I can have hope, and the hope that even if my situation doesn't change, I can still change, that God has a purpose in the pain. Why? Because God doesn't waste anything. He uses all things for His glory, and for your good if you're called according to His purposes.
You see, there's a question that I had, I was like, Why did Jesus do this?
He comes to the woman, he says, Do not weep. And the last time or I guess, the future time that we find Jesus, raising somebody from the dead is Lazarus. And Lazarus isn't dead at this point. But his sisters, Mary and Martha are urging Jesus to come to their sick brother because they think and they know he's about to die. And the words that they use to convince Jesus to come and save Lazarus is they say, Rabbi, teacher, Jesus, would you come because the one whom you love is sick. And then we took a look at Luke chapter seven. And then we find in the scriptures, that Jesus raised Lazarus, because he loved him so much. And the reason why Jesus now is raising this man, isn't because he loves him so much, necessarily, although he does. But what we find in Scripture is that Jesus raises the son because of the mother. Look at this, verse 13. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her. And he said to her, Do not weep. And then he came, and he touched the beer, which is the coffin that they were taking the man out on. You see, what we find here is that Jesus has always moved by compassion, and impressed by faith. When you look in the scriptures, notice, Jesus has always moved by his love towards people, and impressed by their faith towards him. Now Jesus, moved by his love for Lazarus now raises Lazarus, Jesus, moved by his love towards this woman raises her son, which is why I believe that this story is not simply a story of Jesus raising a man from the dead. But it is a story of Jesus Raising Hope from the dead. Why? Because Jesus had compassion on the mother. So he raised the son, which means that the raising of the dead was the adjacent miracle to the raising of hope. When hopes hard in this case, Jesus is always doing miracles, because He loves you. He has a heart for you. Because he wants you to be something different than what you are. He wants you to experience more of him. And as Jesus does this, he approaches the beard. And he does something really interesting. It says in verse 14, he came up and he touched the beer, and the bear stood still. And Jesus said, Young man, I say to you, arise. You see, it's really interesting when Jesus starts to talk to dead things like they're living things. Young man, I say to you arise. This wasn't a man who was sick, he wasn't in a coma. He wasn't sleeping. This was a funeral. He had just fallen over. They had planned this, he was being carted away to his tomb. And all of the sudden Jesus starts to speak to this dead thing. Like it's a living thing. It's not that Jesus didn't know the facts is that Jesus is the truth. And when the facts start to contradict the truth, guess which one has to change. And all of the sudden Jesus speaks to the dead thing like a living thing, and the dead thing has to come into agreement with what the truth says. The scripture says that Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and now the truth comes into contact with the facts. Be encouraged that when your facts disagree with the truth have hope Because Jesus just might be up to something
he's saying rising, get up. And the man is awakened in the he delivers the man to his mother. You see, when hope is hard, it's often comes from a damaged hope. But here's the truth of it. When some of us have a damaged hope, understand that the compassion of the Lord can fix any damaged thing. He has compassion towards you, He loves you. And through that he approaches this woman why we should have hope? Why hope is hard, and why hope should have us? It's interesting, because this is not a story of a woman with incredible hope, who believes that God would do something for her? You notice in the Scripture, this woman never invites JESUS IN Jesus invites himself and why hope should have you is because even when you are faithless, he remains faithful. And whatever situation you're in, maybe you're like this woman today. And you're saying, I don't even know if I have enough hope to even invite Jesus into my life. Guess what? He sees you. He knows you. He loves you. And even when you can't hold on to hope, hope holds on to you. And hope comes to you. And you might be sitting here saying, I don't know if I can do all that will be encouraged. There was no invitation necessary from this woman for Jesus to have compassion on her. He just did it. Because he had such an overwhelming and abundant love that had to be poured out in the closest person where this love could be poured out was upon this woman. And sometimes we say, Oh, I don't have what it takes to come to Jesus. Maybe it's because my sin, I don't feel good enough to come to Jesus, maybe it's because of my past. I feel like I've done too much where Jesus wouldn't accept me. Maybe it's because of my present. I don't feel like I have enough faith currently, as I am to come to Jesus, maybe you just feel like I've hoped for so long. And I'm sitting in this place where now I'm not sure that I even have what it takes right now sitting in church to come to Jesus and be encouraged. Because this woman didn't come to Jesus. Jesus came to the woman. Why? Because he loves her. And he has compassion on her. He said, Wherever you are, is where I want to be. And I want to come and affect your life. And I want to come and raise you up. And I want to come in Yes, raise the debt, things that are in your life back to life. But importantly, I want to encounter you. I want to raise your hope up to life. This is a story all about how hope came to us. And if I could read a scripture over you for a minute, I want to read this to you because it encouraged me and I truly believe it can encourage you and I don't know what faith looks like for you right now. It could look like you closing your eyes. It could look like you opening your hands. It could look at you praying along with me or reading it on the screen. I don't know what it looks like for you. But limitations, chapter three, verse 20, verse 19, through 24 says this. Remember my affliction in my wanderings, the warm wood in the goal. My soul continually remembers it. And it's bowed down within me. But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases and his mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness. The Lord is my portion says my soul therefore, I will hope and him. See Christian hope comes from God's past faithfulness. Solomon says I remember these things. I call to mind these things, that your mercies are new every single morning and great is your faithfulness. How do I know that His mercies are new every single morning? It's because I'm still here. They're new morning after morning after morning after morning in I mean, m o r n i n g and MOURNIN G their new morning after morning After morning after morning after morning because great it is faithfulness. And fear his hope holds on to me. Why? Because even when I am faithless, even when I don't have enough faith for God to raise the dead thing, I don't have any more hope that it's gonna get me better. I still believe the lie of hopelessness, if I'm being honest, the in this room, how things are pasture or how things are just ever going to be, this is just the way the world works. This is just how my family is. This is just who I am, I will never be more than what I thought I would be. This is just it. The Lie of hopelessness says that how things are is how things will always be. But the promise of hope in Jesus Christ is that how things are is not how things will always be is that his mercies are new every single morning, and that he's faithful to you, and to the soul of the soul of Solomon responds and says, what the Lord is my portion, therefore a hope in Him. You know what that means? Even if I don't get anything else. God, you're my portion, even if the situation stays the exact same culture, my portion, even if my health or my family, or my money, or my addiction never goes away, God, you're still my portion. And I trust in You. Because even when I'm faithless, then you're still faithful Christian hope goes from God's faithfulness to God's faithfulness. He doesn't depend on you depends on him. And now we sit in this space of receptivity, just like Solomon did, and says, Now, I have hope. Not in me, and not in what I can do. But the Lord is my portion, therefore, I hope in Him, that hope is here. Hope it's not just there. When things get all good hope is here. It here God can meet me. If you're a follower of Jesus, this is the reality that you have a resurrected Jesus, that the Spirit of God lives on the inside of you. And one day that nobody in this room knows Jesus is going to come back for his bride, and he is going to usher us up into heaven. And we are going to be with Him forever and ever. And he is going to wipe away every tear from every eye because he has seen every pain, and he knows every struggle, he knows everything that you have buried, and everything that you thought would live that died. He's gonna say, come and be with me. And you're gonna dwell in the house of the Lord for all of the days of your life, and you're going to gaze upon his beauty and you're going to look at the scars in his hands, and you're going to be reminded of the price that he paid for your life. And in the meantime, if nothing else happens, you can look forward to that. And therefore, I have hope that you pray with me, Lord Jesus, we have hope, not because of us and not because the circumstances will get any better. But because we have the God of hope, who came here to me as I am not just there to the future me when I'm better. God we welcome you here. We have the faith to believe that God's you are here. And for those of us in the room who got don't even have the hope we have a damaged hope, a tired hope.
We welcome you in this place. So if you need any borrow some from me, God, we invite you here. If there's anyone in this room, who's saying, Man, I don't know if I have that hope.
Like I hear this story about this God who has hope and is a God of hope and wants me to abound and hope and there's going to be a future where I'm with him and all of these beautiful things and he'll care for me like no one has ever cared for me he'll forgive my sins and I will have made righteous with God. I don't think that I have any of that. But I want to let me tell you that God loves you so much. He has compassion on you. And He wants to give you a hope. That is like an anchor for your soul. That is not tied to you anymore, but that is tied directly to him. And in that hope you about Want sets you in this room are watching online and you're saying, Man, I want that. But I don't think I have it. I just want you to raise your hand. I don't know who you are, but you know who you are. If that's you in this room, just raise your hand. And I want to pray with you. If you're saying me and that's me, that's me. That's me. I want that hope that only Jesus offers. I want to give my life to Jesus. Just raise your hand so I can pray with you.
I see you. I see you. I see. If that's you in this room, are you watching online, I just want you to pray this with me and your heart. Say Lord Jesus,
I'm sorry for sinning against you. I choose to turn away from sin and to follow you Jesus for the rest of my life. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me that he spent three days in the tomb, and he was raised on the third day, proving he is exactly who he said that he was the son of God. Holy Spirit, I invite you into my heart, Make me new, and to make me like you.
Give me a hope like an anchor for my soul that is rooted and tied to you and not to me. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer, I want to say congratulations
