Finding Hope When It Feels Hopeless

This podcast is a ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

Amen.

Amen.

Yeah.

You don't have to keep it in, you can let it out.

Some of y'all are like, woo! This is a Baptist church.

Be careful.

Relax.

Joy is one of the things that distinguishes believers from non-believers.

Not an emotion, but an understanding that's based upon a reality.

And so when we say that all my hope is in Jesus, what we're saying is we don't have a plan B.

If you have a plan B, I got two words for you today.

Good luck.

And I'm not being haughty, I'm not being mean-spirited.

I'm just saying it's not going to work.

And that's not pragmatism, that's experience, because most of us have run our plan B before and got to the end of it.

Amen?

And that's when God is just full of wonder.

He's not just wonderful.

He's full of wonder, and you're like, oh, why do I make it so hard?

So if you're here today and you're making it hard, uh, there's hope for you.

So just relax.

We're gonna open up the Bible.

I'm gonna pray in a minute.

We're gonna open up the Bible, and I'm gonna talk to you about finding hope when it feels hopeless.

Because we've had a rough year as a country.

And it's easy to look around and kind of go, man, we're just getting we're just getting the snot kicked out of us here.

Uh, where's God in all this?

He's the same place he's always been, on the throne and in charge.

And the question really is, where are God's people?

Uh and so let me pray and we'll dive in this one.

Let's pray together, beloved.

God thanks that uh you you there is no plan B.

We confess, God, that anything we've come up with on our own is insufficient and lacking, and it's not going to work.

And so, Lord, we forsake all of that.

Uh, we come to you.

Uh, you said in Jeremiah that my people have committed two sins.

We've forsaken you, the well of living water, and we've dug for ourselves wells that hold no water.

So all of our bad choices can be rolled up into those two options.

We forsook you, and we dug, and we try to find satisfaction on our own.

And so we, that's why we and that leaves us feeling hopeless.

And so, Lord, we we put our shovels down and we come to you today to say, God, you are who you've always said you were.

And so we repent of any untruth that we've allowed to take root in our life and give expression to behavior that mars your glory and your sufficiency.

So, Lord, say something today that has our name on it.

We want to be people of hope because that's who the Bible says we are.

That's why you said to your people, oh Israel, hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore.

And so we're never stupid, left out in the dark when we hope in you.

So we come today to rise up to our identity as people of hope in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to 1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

And I'm gonna read five verses in 1 Peter, uh, and I'll uh and I'll talk to you about finding hope when it feels hopeless.

And let me say this uh uh that I want to reverse them because when you go to seminary, which is like grad school for preachers, uh, and they tell you, hey, preach and then give application.

I want to give application first, and then I want to preach.

I want to tell you this is what I'm laboring towards.

This is what I want you to walk out of here with today and do.

And it's simply this that every time someone asks you this next week, how are you doing?

I want your answer to include and involve the word hope.

Uh, like I was sitting in Lowe's uh looking for something, uh, and the guy walked up to me and said, Hey sir, how you doing today?

What can I do for you?

And I said, Which one of those questions do you want me to answer?

And he said, What?

And I said, You said how am I doing, and what can I do for you today?

Which one?

You want both or one?

He goes, Yeah, I'll take both.

And I said, So, how am I doing?

I said, I'm full of hope.

I'm joyfully hopeful.

And he was like, Oh, easy.

Easy.

Because he it just doesn't, because because we live in a culture that can get really jaded and cynical.

Matter of fact, Reinhold Nieber was a theologian in the 60s, he said this.

He said, if you scratch the surface of a cynic, you'll find an idealist who's been disillusioned.

And we live with a lot of disillusioned people around us, and so hope is this rare commodity.

It's kind of like, hey, for the people who aren't really smart and don't know really what's going on in the big picture, they can be hopeful.

But for the rest of us, we've got to be morose and sad and working out something where we can be our own functional savior.

And I just want to say, hey, here's the application.

Here's what I want you to do, not as a result of anything I say, but because of what the Bible says, I want when people ask you, hey, how you doing, just to just to look them in the eye and go, I'm hopeful.

Or add some adjective, I'm joyfully hopeful.

Because then it's like, all right, all right, easy, easy.

You need any plumbing parts?

No, no.

And so why do I get that?

I get that from the Bible.

1 Peter chapter 1.

1 Peter 1 · chapter mention

If you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row there, on your pew.

I'm on page 1014.

This is what now.

Now Peter's writing to people who are scattered.

It's called the dispersion.

Uh, they've been driven from their homeland.

There's more of God's people living abroad than there are living in Palestine or in Jerusalem at the time.

He's writing to a beat-down people who've had a year of hurricanes and wildfire, uh, wildfires, and death, and destruction, and all this stuff.

And by the way, beloved, when man looks to man to meet his needs, the byproduct is always violence.

It just always is.

And so he's writing to people that that have been pretty beat up, they've had a hard year.

They're not going to send a Christmas letter out to all their friends this year because it's just so depressing.

And he writes these words, 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 1.

1 Peter 1:1

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion and Pontus and Richmond and Galatia and Cati and Cappadocia and Asia and Sugarland and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Verse 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Now we'll just stop right there, because that's where we're going to end this morning.

But I when I say finding hope when it feels hopeless, let me give you four things from the from the Bible about why I believe we can find hope uh when it feels hopeless.

Number one is simply this because of mercy, we can be hopeful.

Because of mercy, it's right there in verse 3 where he says, according to his great mercy.

Now, there's three words I want to draw your attention to in that little fragment of a sentence.

And the first one is according to, or yeah, the guy is four words, according to his great mercy.

Now the Bible's very clear that God operates according to greatness, and the greatness that moves and motivates him is this thing called mercy.

But before we get to great mercy, I want to just get back to those two little words, according to.

According to.

And you say, what do you mean?

According to, it's not out of.

Most of us don't have according to relationships.

We have out of friendships and relationships.

You think, what do you mean?

The Bible says, according to his great mercy.

Uh and already in verse 2, he said, according to his foreknowledge.

So God acts towards you according to, and it's more about proportionality, and it's a reflection of his capacity.

Allowed me to demonstrate.

Uh, when I was like, I don't know, maybe 22 years old, I met a man that owned an airline.

Yes, just breathed that in right there.

That ought to have scratch and sniff on it.

Whew, smells like money.

Uh, yeah, was loaded.

And I met him at a friend of mine's house in Georgetown, Texas, had a beautiful home on the banks overlooking some river, I don't know what river it was.

And and he just said, Hey, this is Mr.

Muse, Lamar Muse.

He owned an airline called Muse Air.

He used to fly out of Dallas Love Field.

And I was kind of like, uh, I don't know.

We went to dinner that night, and my friend said, Do you know who that is?

And I said, He's an old guy that owns an airline.

And when you're 22, you just don't put it together.

Hey, this person has some bandwidth, he has some capacity, he's stacking paper or whatever.

And and a friend said, Hey, uh, I mean, Mr.

Muse is a very generous man, and blah, blah, blah.

And the other guy set a table, he said, he's a multimillionaire too.

And I was like, Okay, that's wonderful, I guess.

I don't I don't know.

What's it got to do with me?

And so the next day we went into town, we went to eat.

Well, I was sitting there eating, and my friend said, Hey, you should tell them about your ministry.

And so, and I was like, Ah, I'm not comfortable with that at all.

And so, what's this got to do with according to when you get around somebody and there's two men that were sitting there at the table, both of them very successful, both of them multimillionaires, and and it's like, hey, you know what?

And they said, Hey, we're gonna go do some shopping in town, and then I mean my friend said, Hey, well, we're gonna go do this, and they got back and we leave, come back that night for dinner.

We sit down, and one of them says, Hey, I got you a present, Neil.

Now, I don't know about you, but when somebody that has that much capacity gets you, says they get you a present, where does your mind go?

It's an airplane, right?

You got me an airplane, and so I'm just kind of thinking, this is gonna be mind-blowing.

And so we're sitting there, and then the whole time he's just kind of talking.

He says, Yeah, I saw this thing, and I just thought, you know what?

That seems like a upstanding young man.

I want to bless this young man, and so I got you this, and I was just thinking, yeah, oh, could it be, Lord?

Bring it, yes, Lord, bring down the kingdom.

And so after dinner, he reaches under the table and he gets a bag and puts it on the table.

And I was like, Well, it's not an airplane.

Maybe it's the keys to the airplane.

Does an airplane have keys?

I don't know.

And he pulls it out, and it was a little pig figurine.

Yeah.

You're feeling me now.

Because I was like, won, won.

And he said, Yeah, you were telling us we were talking about growing up on a farm, that guy grew up on a farm, and he said, You had pigs, and I just thought you would enjoy this.

I wouldn't enjoy that.

Not at all.

See, now look at me.

Now I'm not hating on the man, but what he did was he gave out of what he had.

He didn't give according to.

He's like, what he has is a big pot of goodness.

He took a little spoon and got a little teaspoon out and said, Here you go, I'm gonna give you out of that.

He didn't give according to.

Now, I don't say that to disrespect that man, okay?

Great man, what he does with this money is his thing.

You don't say to a 22-year-old, I got you a gift, and I'm like, uh, what?

But God gives.

I tell you that story to make this point.

God gives according to.

In other words, what God does is is is proportional to who God is.

It's as big as God is.

Now, why do I say that?

Because he says, hey, according to his great mercy, the mercy of God is as big as God is.

Now, what does that mean?

Because in this room, there's some of you, just by the law of averages, there's some people that are living in sin.

You're doing something right now, you know it's wrong, it's sinful, it goes against what the Bible teaches.

And the longer you've done that and you've lived in that, you begin to think to yourself, oh, I'm getting away with it.

I mean, God doesn't know or doesn't care, or God thinks about this the way I think about this, you could not be further from the truth.

What you're experiencing is not that, oh, God's God's somehow being conformed to my image.

No, no, no.

What you're experiencing is the undeserved mercy of God, God's great mercy that he relates to people according to, not out of.

He doesn't take a little teaspoon and go, here's a little bit of mercy.

You better get your act together.

The Bible says in Ephesians 2 that he's rich in mercy, that that's the thing that allows regeneration to happen, which allows you, empowers you and I to repent.

And so, before we say, How do we find hope when it feels hopeless?

First of all, just because of mercy, we can be hopeful.

Just because the sheer undeserved nature of God's mercy that is not out of, but according to.

That's what makes it great.

Second thing the Bible tells us is because of the resurrection, we have a hope that cannot die.

Because of the resurrection, he continues in verse 3, and he says, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Now hear that.

See, we have this hope that cannot die.

And the resurrection is this that God going on record is saying, Hey, this is unchangeable.

It is fixed and firm, it is never going to perish.

God has caused you to be born again into this living hope.

Let me let me tell you four things about this living hope.

The first one is simply this that this this hope leans your life forward.

This this hope, because if you're not careful, here's when we get hopeless, we begin to look around us, and all we see is our circumstances that are going on right now, and you begin to think this is all there is, and this is all there's going to be.

And hope causes you to kind of look up and lean your life forward and go, you know what?

This is real, this is whatever it is, but it's not all there is.

Because when you start thinking this is all there is, you get ruthless, you get hard, you you you begin to protect yourself, and that's not who the Bible calls us to be.

So when I say hope leans your life forward, that's what I mean.

Second thing about this living hope is that it reframes what is.

It reframes what is.

Let me let me draw a picture in your mind.

Uh, this past year, California, parts of California were devastated by wildfire.

And I mean, just and I'm watching that just thinking, can somebody come up with an invention that could keep this from happening?

And I'm not mad, I'm just like, ooh.

But here's the thing that always amazes me.

They show wildfire like a wall of fire of flames and just decimates and incinerates everything in its path.

And then they let people back in, and there's just smoldering ashes.

And people find something like a pitcher or a wedding ring, and they're so happy.

And they're like, Whoa, we're gonna start over.

We got this, we're gonna, we're gonna rebuild.

I mean, I mean, uh the David Muir, the reporter from ABC, I mean that that media, they'll just stick a microphone in your face.

How do you feeling?

My house burned to the ground.

How do you think I'm feeling?

But this one lady, she found her wedding ring, and she goes, Oh, that's all I wanted to find was my wedding ring.

And we're gonna start over.

We lost everything, but we're gonna be okay.

How does that happen?

Because hope reframes what is.

Unless you look at what is through the lens of hope, it will overwhelm and overpower you.

Third thing that hope does is hope prepares us for what we'll be.

Hope gets our eyes off of right now and kind of looks forward to what will be.

And so we're able to have this sense of perspective of eternity that informs right now and the temporary.

Uh, here's the last thing that this hope does: it empowers us to live with the values of heaven while here on earth.

It it allows us, it empowers us.

It doesn't just uh give us uh uh uh allowed like permission, but it gives us power, it empowers us to live with the values of heaven while we're here on earth.

Because again, like I said a minute ago, when you lose hope and you just look around and you start, if it's just math, you get ruthless and you think, man, I gotta look out for myself, I gotta take care of myself, and that's what you begin to do.

Uh but but hope comes along and says, you know what?

I can live out the values of heaven here on this earth.

Now, when in preparation for a sermon, I read from a lot of different sources.

And so one of the sources I read from, I was researching something about hope and the way it affects emotional well-being.

And I got down this rabbit hole one day in my office looking at different things, and I found an article in Psychology Today magazine, which I do not agree with everything they say, but I agree with this part here.

Um a lady named Mary Lamia wrote this about hope.

This, this, I I read it and started just chuckling.

I was like, that's she's talking about the gospel and doesn't know it.

She said this.

She said, Hope structures your life in anticipation of the future and influences how you feel in the present.

Hope creates a positive mood about an expectation, a goal, or a future situation.

Such mental time travel influences your state of mind and alters your behavior in the present.

The positive feelings you experience as you look ahead, imagining hopefully what might happen, what you will attain, or who you are going to be can alter how you currently view yourself.

Ask yourself this question today.

How does biblical hope influence the way you view yourself?

How does just the hope of the gospel inform and influence the way you view yourself?

See, the third thing the Bible tells us about how we can find hope when it feels hopeless is this because of our salvation, we have an inheritance that is waiting for us.

We have an inheritance.

It's in verse 4.

Peter says, Hey, the God's he's caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and then to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.

Now notice the Bible's use of the little word to.

Christianity and salvation and the gospel are never never neutral.

It's always kind of calling us to something, toward something, for something, away from other things.

It's not just away, it's also to.

It's not just no, it's also yes.

And he says, hey, he's called you to this and to an inheritance.

Now, he doesn't go on and give us a whole lot of detail about the inheritance, uh, but we can say this based on the authority of the Bible, that this is the reward of God's people.

This is this is God's acknowledgement uh uh of the life that his people faithfully live here on this earth.

It matters.

So that's why the Bible says in 1 Corinthians, hey, don't grow weary in well-doing.

Don't grow weary in well-doing.

Can I ask you a question?

You ever look around, people that you're like, hey, I I I do good stuff, and I look around every once in a while, and not that many people are doing good stuff.

They're they're spending it all on themselves, and so you start thinking, should I keep doing good stuff?

Does anybody besides me relate to that?

Something like every once in a while.

Yeah, yeah, and guess what?

The Bible understands that feeling.

That's why Paul says, hey, don't grow weary and we'll do it.

Why?

He goes on to say, because in due time you'll reap you'll reap.

You will reap.

I'm gonna be a part of a funeral for a man named Darryl Pampin on Wednesday.

Mr.

Pampin's a simple man, worked at the sugar mill for I don't know how many years.

Uh anytime you got around him, he could tell you the history of sugar land.

That cat's lived here before it was a sugar land.

It was like a little bunch of people that came out here.

And so uh why did I bring him up?

Here's why.

Because after all these years of faithfully living, faithfully being a man of the word, faithfully loving his one, his wife Ida, who who went on to be with God before him, and and so they're gonna be reunited in heaven.

After all these years, that man gets to heaven, and all of a sudden you see the scope of his influence and his faithfulness.

And the Bible says this inheritance.

This is God's way of saying to people who just keep on, keeping on doing the right thing, okay?

God says it matters, not just in this life, but it matters infinitely more in the next life, which is why Jesus said to his disciples in Matthew 19, when when after the rich young ruler walks away, because Jesus lays it down and says, This is what it means to follow me, okay?

And he didn't say this because the guy was rich, like that's bad.

He said, Hey, you trust in your wealth.

So I tell you what you do.

You you you want to know what it's like?

Give away all your stuff and then come follow me.

And the Bible says that this the man walked away sad because he had a lot of money.

And and the disciples were like, Oh, and Peter spoke up and said, Lord, I mean, if that guy can't make it, then who can be saved?

I mean, we're we're in deep weeds here.

And Jesus says, because Peter was mad.

He said, Hey, we've left everything to follow you.

What will there be for us?

And Jesus says, Hey, don't worry.

Let me tell you something.

Whoever's left houses or land, or brother, or sister, or mother, or father for my sake, will receive tenfold in the life to come.

And so the Bible's clear and the Bible's unapologetic about the fact that there's a reward for God's people.

It's an acknowledgement of their faithfulness.

That's the inheritance.

But here in 1 Peter, he does give us three adjectives, and I just want to point them, uh, I want to point you to them just briefly this morning.

The first one, he says, he says, is imperishable.

It's imperishable, it's unlike everything we see around us.

It will not decay, it's incapable of diminishing in any way.

It's imperishable.

It cannot lose its luster, its sheen, or its shine.

It just cannot happen.

So this inheritance is imperishable.

Secondly, he says it's undefiled.

It's undefiled, which means it's morally and spiritually pure.

It is undefiled.

Okay.

Thirdly, he's he uses this adjective, it's unfading.

It's unfading.

It's not like flowers that look beautiful for about three days and then they begin to fade and smell funny.

Have you ever noticed that?

It's like, hmm, that's a lot of money to spend on flowers because in about three days they're going away.

Buy something that will last.

I'm not down on flowers, get my flowers, whatever.

Beautiful.

But when he says unfading, Fading.

Think of it like this.

This happened yesterday in our house.

Happens every Saturday.

My wife, great homemaker, great take care of our home.

Every Saturday, my wife spends hours literally dusting, cleaning every nook and cranny of our house.

And yesterday was no exception.

It was spotless.

I was laying on the couch watching college football, and I kept saying, Hey, babe, can I do anything?

And she would say, No, I want you to sit there and do nothing.

Thank you, Lord, for that.

I got to look thoughtful, and I didn't have to be.

And so I went back to watching football.

And so everything is clean, everything is shiny.

And she gets to the end, and she's just kind of like, okay, what you you've been asking me what you could do.

Here's what you could do.

You and Sophie could help me keep it this way.

Yes, yes, I hear you, ladies.

It's kind of like, oh, but see, we have to live in these things called houses.

And so because we live here, stuff doesn't always get put put back where it goes.

I walked in the kitchen last night at 10:30.

It didn't make it till this morning.

There were dishes already on the counter.

And I just thought, mmm, my kid's in trouble.

Because I know I didn't put them there.

And my wife, easily five hours yesterday cleaning.

Easily.

And she's going to wake up this morning and see this.

And I just thought about this one word: unfading.

Unfading.

Let me ask you a question.

What are you enjoying right now that's incapable of fading?

Because the reason we get addicted to things is because I think deep inside we know it's going to go away.

And so we got to seize upon it while we can.

But the Bible says this inheritance that we have, it's unfading.

Fourth thing the Bible tells us is that because of God's power, we're being guarded.

This is why we can be hopeful.

Hear this, and I'll be done this morning.

You still with me?

He says, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

If you're prone to writing in your Bible, would you underline or circle the word guarded?

He said, Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

Now, if you come into my office at any point, you'll see across from right in front of my desk on that wall that faces my desk is a big glass marker board.

And I write things on there.

If you went in there right now, you would see fragments of thoughts and all this stuff.

And sometimes when I read things in the Bible that I don't understand, I stand up and I go kind of diagram the sentence on the board.

I break it down into smaller clusters of words, like I did with this right here.

And so, because it says, hey, we don't talk like this.

He says, hey, uh, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

And if you're not careful, you miss what's being said.

So I stood up this week and I just broke it down into these little clusters of words.

Who by God's power.

And I just spent as much sustained thought as I could just thinking about the power of God.

Who by God's power.

And I thought about a British theologian named Carl Bates, who pastored a church, and he said, you know, God, I want you to pour out your power on my congregation and on my life.

And so every day for 40 days, he would get up and go to his office early in the morning, lay his Bible and his calendar out on his desk and just pray and say, God, pour out your power.

At the end of 40 days, nothing happened.

He said, I was mad at God.

So on the 41st day, I showed up, I had a chip on my shoulder, and I was ready to get at it with God.

And I just said, God, I've been praying for 40 days and I haven't seen or sensed any of your power.

What's the deal here?

And he said, I got still and I was just listening.

And he said, Clear as a bell, I could just sense the Holy Spirit saying, For the plans that you have, you don't need my power.

You can accomplish all that on your own.

You're just asking for my power because you think that's what you're supposed to do, not because you recognize and know your need of it.

Ask yourself this question, beloved.

When's the last time you experienced God's power?

When's the last time you saw something happen that was beyond your resources?

Second cluster of words.

He says, Who by God's power, here's these three words, are being guarded.

Are being guarded.

That word guarded, the word picture behind that is this.

It's either to prevent a hostile invasion or to keep the inhabitants of a besieged city from fleeing.

It cuts both ways.

Hear it again.

It's to prevent a hostile invasion.

In other words, guarded means God's not going to let these marauders come up with siege ramps and ladders and come pouring over the walls of your life.

But also, and I think this is the one that's maybe more applicable to many of us today, to keep the inhabitants of a besieged city from taking flight.

In other words, when it gets overwhelming and you feel like things are just pouring over the wall, you start thinking, I can't stay here.

Here's what it sounds like in 2017.

You wake up in the middle of the night, ladies, and you look over at your husband, and the thought just goes through your mind, you know what?

I deserve better than this.

Nobody knows how hard this is.

I've been living with this rascal for so long.

He ain't gonna change.

And like a bottle rocket, it just shoots across your mind.

I wonder if I could make it on my own.

Yeah.

You say, Oh, how do you know that?

I hear it all the time in counseling.

I hear men in counseling say this.

Yeah, I drive home every day, and every once in a while the thought goes through my mind, what if I just kept going down I-10 and didn't take that exit?

Why?

Because they're starting to feel overwhelmed, and there's a part of them just kind of says, you know what?

I I this just feels like a besieged city.

I gotta get out of here.

But instead, they put the blinker on, they go home to embrace that impossible situation that they're facing.

And the Bible says to you that you if anybody in this room is like that, you just think, man, things at work are so overwhelming.

I just don't know what to do.

I'm just feeling overwhelmed.

The Bible says to you, good news, you're being guarded.

You're being guarded.

The God of the universe flexes his sovereign muscles and he stands guard against the people who are coming over the walls.

But also, he says beside you, and he just whispers in your ear, do not go anywhere.

We're gonna get through this.

Not you're gonna get through this, or I'm gonna get through this, but we are going to get through this.

He says, You're being guarded through faith.

And then here's the third phrase that I just had to think a lot about this week to make sure I understood it.

For a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Now hear that.

You're smart people for a salvation that's ready to be revealed in the last time.

You have to realize that this salvation has already been experienced because he says earlier that God caused us to be born again.

So it's not about, hey, you're gonna be Christians.

No, these are for these are people that already are Christians.

And this salvation is ready to be revealed.

What is he saying?

What he's saying is this is at the last time, when it's the darkest, when you're close to giving up, when you've had a year like we've had this past year, this salvation is ready to be revealed.

It's what Jesus says in Matthew 5 when he says, No one lights a lamp and puts it under a bushel, but he puts it on a lampstand so it gives light to the whole room.

So let your light so shine before men that they see your good deeds and they glorify your Father who's in heaven.

But see, beloved, here's the reality.

Here's why you need to hear this on the first Sunday of Advent.

Here's how you need to think about the hope that is held out for us in the gospel, is because this salvation that you have was tailor-made for times such as this.

When everyone's looking around and kind of going, man, I mean, it's like the world is coming apart at the seams.

Just think about it.

I mean, Christians aren't Pollyanna.

We don't look around and kind of go, well, you know, some bad stuff happened.

Horrible stuff just happened.

Think about it.

Puerto Rico gets hit by Hurricane Maria.

Most of the island, as we sit in this room right now, is still without power.

And so people are sitting in the dark.

They sit outside during the day because it's so oppressively hot.

And then it could be six more months before they get power restored to the whole island.

And then Charlottesville, Virginia happens, and it leaves a stain on race relations in our country.

To where people look at other ethnic groups and people groups, and you doubt their intentions towards you, and the media foments and foams and stirs this up.

And then we get a visit from Hurricane Harvey.

Myself and other men and women in these churches stood in some of y'all's houses with water up to our knees and said, What do you need us to do?

And you were so overwhelmed at this thing that was coming pouring over the walls of your life.

You're like, I I don't know.

And then rednecks with power tools go to work.

And you're just like, I don't know what to do.

What?

They're like, back up, we got this.

And as people are still getting floors installed.

And it's then Las Vegas happens.

And it's the deadliest assault in the history of the United States.

And people want to have conversations about gun control and this, that, and the other.

And we miss the dark depravity of human nature.

That when man looks to man to meet their deepest needs, the byproduct is going to be violence.

If that wasn't enough five weeks later, Sutherland Springs happens.

And it's like, where's God?

Where's God?

He doesn't seem to be able to even protect his own people.

Are you kidding me?

And you want me to believe in that God?

Yes.

And I want you to believe in the truthfulness of your salvation because it is intended by God to be the beautiful complexity and the sufficiency and the brightness of it all is intended for darkness like this.

This is why the Old Testament, before Jesus comes, it's very dark.

And the Old Testament says those who dwell in a land of deep darkness have seen a great light.

And so, just as in his first coming, Christ comes, and in his coming, he punches a hole in the night.

And the Bible said it, that simple language, those that are dwelling in deep darkness, upon them a light is shown.

We as a culture could look back on this year and say, wildfire, hurricane, tragedy, travesty.

Man, where's the hope?

It's in you, beloved.

It's in me.

We are people of the hope.

We're the people that get to let it out and to loose gospel hope on our culture, in our words, and in our deeds.

So on this first Sunday of Advent, we light this candle as a reminder of the hope that is ours because of God and the gospel.

That you've been born again.

He caused you to be born again to a living hope, evidenced by the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

You've been born to an inheritance that's kept in heaven.

Nobody on earth can affect it.

It is being kept in heaven.

And because it's kept in heaven, somebody in heaven is in charge of it, and it's got your name all over it.

So in the meantime, don't grow weary in doing good, beloved.

You just keep on doing good gospel work.

God will take care of the record.

And when you stand before Him, you'll be overwhelmed.

One day we're gonna feast in Zion, but in the meantime, we get to bring the kingdom to bear here on this earth.

Let's think about these realities.

The word of the Lord from Psalm 62.

God, the one and only, I'll wait as long as He says.

Everything I need comes from Him, so why not?

He's solid rock under my feet, and breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle.

I'm set for life.

How long will you gang up on me?

How long will you run with the bullies?

There's nothing to you, any of you, your rotten floorboards, worm-eaten rafters, ant heels plotting to bring down mountains, far gone and make-believe.

You talk a good line, but every blessing breathes a curse.

God, the one and only, I'll wait as long as he says.

Everything I hope for comes from him, so why not?

He's solid rock under my feet, breathing room for my soul, an impregnable castle.

I'm set for life.

My help and glory are in God.

Grant it strength and safe harbor, God.

So trust him absolutely, people.

Lay your lives on the line for him.

God is a safe place to be.

Man, as such, is smoke.

Women as such, a mirage.

Put them together, they're nothing.

Two times nothing is nothing.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Let's pray together.

Before I pray, I want to invite you to pray about what feels most hopeless in your life right now.

Maybe it's a circumstance or situation.

Maybe one of your kids is off the reservation.

Maybe it's a work relationship.

Whatever it is.

God does his best work in the dark.

And it's darkest right before the light of dawn breaks over the horizon.

He's not forgotten.

He's incapable of forgetting.

He says, Were I to forget you, I would have to forget my right hand.

I can't do that.

Father, we pray to you when it feels hopeless because the hope that is ours in the gospel sustains us.

It comes up under us and kind of buoys us up and kind of says, You're not crazy, you're not believing a fairy tale.

This is the truth.

This is the way.

Walk in it and keep walking in it.

So, Lord, I pray the hope of the gospel to be manifest in our lips and in our lives this week.

For your glory, God, and for our pleasure, we pray in Jesus' name.

And everyone said, Amen.

Let me just point to a couple things, uh, just by way of reminder.

December, just uh if you're a part of our church, you know we we usually have bulletins that we hand out.

December, we just want to simplify, and so we won't have a bulletin in the month of December.

We just want to just chill.

We want you to relax because as culture speeds up, we like to slow down.

Uh, and so uh let me just point to a couple things by way of reminder.

They'll come up on the screen.

The first one is our churchwide hayride, which is coming up on December the 15th.

Um, there's the information you can read.

Uh, tickets are available in the lobby.

We'd come, we'd love for you to come and be a part of that.

If you have any questions, see myself or any of our staff will be available down front, our our pastors and our elders, and and and Amy will be selling tickets in the lobby.

The other thing I want to remind you of before we're dismissed is our student ministry.

Our disciple now is coming up.

Registration begins today.

You can register online.

Uh, you save money if you register early.

There's an early bird rate.

Uh, we do not babysit your children, we do not babysit your students.

Matter of fact, the all the band today, except for just a couple players, was our students that are involved in our student ministry worship band out in the warehouse.

And so we believe that the Bible says our job is to equip the saints for the work of ministry.

So your students are being equipped to be and do who the Bible says they are.

And so this is a great equipping weekend.

We'd love for them to be a part of.

If you have any questions, see any of our staff or Jeff, our student pastor, okay?

I appreciate your presence here.

Again, if you're our guest, there's guest cards that are sitting on top uh of the offering boxes.

There are these wooden boxes by the doors.

If you would, just avail yourself to one of those, fill it out, and stick it in the box.

Usually that information is in our bulletin.

But since we're kind of trying to simplify for the month of December, uh that's not available.

So that's where you would do that, okay?

Stand to your feet.

Let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

Hope is a good thing.

It's the best of all good things.

May hope, may the hope of God find you and unwind you today.

And in that liberation, may you find freedom.

In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

Dismiss.