Brave - Romans 15:4

would speak loud and clear through your

word today. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.

This is the last message in a sermon

series that I've entitled brave.

Uh a lot of people want to know how to

be brave and the way to be brave is to

have faith. And so in order to be brave,

you have to contend or fight for your

faith. But problem is some people think

you have to be fearless to be brave and

that's not the case. You can actually be

brave and be fearful because the battle

is not yours, it actually belongs to

God. And so we're trying to wrap our

head around all these different

concepts. But today I wanted to close

down the series by talking about the

foundation of bravery, which is actually

hope. Uh hope is this this thing that

kind of tether is faith and love

together. So if you want to be brave in

your faith, you actually have to learn

how to be hopeful. So in Romans chapter

Romans 15:4

15 verse 4,

the Apostle Paul tells us exactly how to

find hope. He says, "For everything that

was written in the past was written to

teach us so that through the endurance

taught in scriptures and the

encouragement they provide, we might

have hope." So the basis for hope is the

scripture. It's the word of God. It's

the Bible. Uh if you want to be a

hopeful person, then you need to

understand what God's word has to say.

The Bible was written so that we might

have hope. But I believe that we've

maybe watered down the word hope over

the years. We say things like, "I hope

they text me back." Or

"I hope this password works." Or "I hope

they cancel school tomorrow." Or "I hope

the preacher doesn't preach too long."

Don't amen. Um

Not cool, man.

So so for some people, hope has become

wishful thinking. Like to them, hope is

a maybe.

But that's not how hope is used in

scripture. In fact, in the original

Greek language, uh the word hope is

elpis, which means to expect with

confidence.

So, so hope is exposed in how you wait

for the Lord. Do Do you wait with

confidence, or do you wait with

apprehension? Uh hope means that that

God is the same today as he was

yesterday, and he'll be the same

tomorrow. Uh hope means that God never

fails. Therefore, I know that I can have

hope for tomorrow and faith for the

fight because I know that God is the

same as always. So, you have this this

concept of faith, which which says, "I

believe God can." All right, so that's

faith. I believe God can. He is up to

the task. But, hope, on the other hand,

hope is I believe God will.

These are two different things. I

believe God can versus I believe God

will. And if you don't believe God will,

then it doesn't really matter if he can.

See you see how hope is the foundation

of faith.

Romans 15:4 again, "For everything that

Romans 15:4

was written in the past was written to

teach us, so that through the endurance"

We're going to talk about that word.

"Through the endurance taught in

scripture and the encouragement they

provide, we might have hope." So, we're

going to get to the endurance word in a

minute, but I want to start with this

idea of might. How do you read that word

might?

Is it, "I might have hope"?

Like Odysseus as he

goes toward Troy for the battle. "I

might have hope." Or or is it like, you

know, you're you're Cowboys fan in the

off season. "I might have hope. Yeah,

yeah, it's looking good next year. I

might have hope." Or are you more on the

other side of things where you're a a

more timid and you're like,

I'm I might have hope.

I might have hope. Kind of like Eeyore

when he finds a $20 bill and he's like,

"It's probably counterfeit." You know,

it's like, is that is that you? Are you

I might have hope or I might have So, me

and my wife, we we read the weather app

very differently. Um she'll look at the

weather app and she'll see a 40% chance

of rain, and she will say, "Hey, let's

go to Bush Gardens because nobody else

will be there." Meanwhile, I'm over here

like I work for the Federal Reserve, and

I'm like calculating all the gas money

it takes to get there, and I'm like,

"Okay, so you're saying you want to pay

$400 to stand in a thunderstorm and eat

a soggy funnel cake, all right?" And

then I'm like, "Well, why don't we just

like Venmo our retirement account

directly to uh Bush Gardens and go ahead

and get it over with." See, some people

are a little more hopeful

than others.

So, some people here, we might have

hope, and they go, "Yes, I am confident

that God will." And then other people

hear the exact same truth, and they

whisper, "Well, possibly. I- if I'm

lucky, then maybe God will." So, one

person is hopeful, and the other person

is hopeless.

Like they both have hope, it's just in

different amounts. Now, let me just say,

that doesn't mean that this person is

some super Christian, and this person is

some forgettable background character,

okay? Hope is hard to find, uh

especially when you're going through

difficult seasons in your life.

See, ho- hope is something that you have

to develop over time for most people.

And God understands that struggle is

real. Uh in Proverbs 18:14, he says, "A

Proverbs 18:14

person's spirit can endure sickness,

but who can survive a a broken spirit or

a hopeless

spirit?"

See, the gospel isn't just for the

healthy soul, it's for the sick. The

gospel said doesn't just say, "Hey, be

blessed in the good times." No, we're

talking about amazing grace here, and

what that means is that even in the bad

times, I can be blessed because I have

Jesus, therefore I have hope.

But But Jesus understands what it's like

to be hopeless.

I mean, think about it. In the garden,

before he went to the cross, he says to

his disciples, "I am deeply grieved to

the point of death."

And then when he's hanging on the cross,

he says, "My God, my God, why have you

forsaken me?"

He He's showing the distance for the

first time in in eternity between he and

his father. When he took the sin of the

world on his shoulders and nailed it to

a cross, there was a distance there. So,

he was hope- less in those moments.

And there are going to be times where we

feel the same way.

Where we feel like God is is distant.

One commentator said that the teacher is

always quiet during the test. And

sometimes that is true for us. But look

how Jesus responded to his hopelessness.

Look what he did. In the garden, he

said, "Father,

not my will, but yours be done."

And then on the cross, right before he

died, he said, "Father, into your hands

I commit my spirit."

Jesus fought for faith in seemingly

hopeless situations, and his father God

honored that faith by not only raising

his son from the dead, but also

providing salvation for the entire

world.

As Rich Wilkerson Jr. says, there's no

such thing as a hopeless situation.

There are only hopeless

people.

So today, I want to I want us to to get

our hopes up.

I want us to have our spirits lifted.

And you say, "Well, how can we do that?"

Well, the first thing to do is to

realize that you cannot lift up your

hopes on your own. Like you cannot hold

up hope by yourself.

So in Psalm 42:5, we come to this

Psalms 42:5

awesome passage of scripture where it

encourages us to talk to ourselves. So

so be that crazy person and talk to

yourself and say the same things that

the psalmist said in 42:5. Say, "Why, my

soul, are you so dejected?"

So why why am I feeling hopeless today?

Why are you in such turmoil? So self,

why why am I in this situation? Why do I

feel this way? And the answer is also

given in the same verse.

Says, "Put your hope in people."

Oh, put your hope in possessions.

Put your hope in opportunities.

No, where do we put our hope?

We put our hope in God. It says, "For I

will praise him, my savior and my God."

Hope is not held up by people, it's not

held up by possessions, and it is not

held up by opportunities. The Apostle

Paul told us where hope is found, and he

said, "For everything that was written

in the past, the scripture is where we

find our hope."

Hope is

an anchor for our faith, so to speak.

Hebrews chapter 6 verse 19.

Hebrews 6:19

Says, "We have this hope as an anchor

for the soul, firm and secure."

And the cool thing about it is it enters

the inner sanctuary behind the curtain.

So I used to live the boat life. And it

was a good life. I enjoyed it. I had a

boat and my family and I we went out on

the boat. I like to fish, they like to

swim, and so most of the time they won

and we wound up swimming more than we

were fishing. Um so I would anchor off

near Goat

um, and uh, it was really weird when we

first moved here cuz like swimming in

brackish water just kind of it's odd. It

feels like you're swimming in root beer,

you know? Um,

you

So, so what I would do is I'd let my

anchor down into the water and it would

go down just a few feet and it would

just be absolutely invisible. I had no

idea what the anchor was actually

connecting to because of the lack of

clarity in the water. Uh, but once that

anchor goes under and you can't see it

anymore, you just got to trust us that

it's anchored to something good. And and

what happens is it it steadies the boat.

Now, it's the Pasquotank River and

there's very few calm days out there.

So, there's always some wind whipping up

and and moving the boat around. But even

though the boat moves, the anchor holds

firm. Well, most of the time. It holds

firm. So, Paul says that you have an

anchor for your faith and that anchor is

based in the word of God. And the

incredible thing about this anchor

called faith, this this hope that you

have, is that it disappears beyond the

curtain. It goes beyond the veil. It

attaches itself, get this, to Jesus in

heaven.

You drop the anchor. You don't know

where it's going,

but it goes into the heavenly realms.

You are being held firm in your faith by

Jesus himself. Isn't that incredible? I

love that. It's it's not based on me and

my willpower. It's based on God's

ability to hold me firm as I study His

word. So, you're not going to see a lot

of times what God is doing underneath

the surface, but what you will see is

that your hope is anchored in His word

and if you hold steady to that, if you

hold steady to His word, then even in

the thunderstorms, you're going to be

okay. So, we talked about last week,

Luke chapter 6, verse 47. Jesus says,

Luke 6:47

"I'm going to show you what someone

looks like who comes to me, hears my

words and acts on them. He's like a man

building a house who dug deep and laid

the foundation on the rock. So, when the

flood came and the rivers crashed

against the house, they could not shake

it because it was so well built.

I love this illustration of an anchor

because before the cross became the

symbol of Christianity,

back in antiquity, when Christians would

die, they would put the symbol of an

anchor on their tombstones. And the

point being that this world may shake,

but my hope is secure.

So, sometimes, you know, a boat drifts

in a storm, but sometimes it's a calm

day and the boat drifts as well because

even when the wind dies down, you still

have tides and currents and all these

things that'll they'll move your boat.

So, these are kind of like the people

where there's no crisis,

there's no emergency, there's just

complacency.

Some people drift

from the word of God not because of some

grief or some rebellion. They they drift

because they have a desire for things

that are greater than their desire for

the word of God.

And then, of course, for others, we go

through these storms in life and we

begin to drift. The marriage struggles,

financial pressure, raising kids, work

stress, grief, all those things.

And you have to remember

that the purpose of your anchor, the

purpose of the word of God,

it was never to stop your boat from

rocking.

What it was designed to do was allow you

to not drift away from a safe place

during a storm or during a time of

complacency.

So, I'm typically a hopeful person,

typically, not always, but most of my

life I've been a hopeful person. And one

commentator said it's better to be hoped

up than hyped up, and I I really like

that. I connected with that. Better to

be hoped up than hyped up. So,

I have this firm conviction that God's

word is true. I have a firm conviction

that God is supremely powerful and I

have a firm conviction that his love is

sure and there's nothing I can do to

learn to to

earn his love or to lose his love. So I

have those firm convictions and we see

those in 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15.

1 Peter 3:15

He says, "But in your hearts regard

Christ the Lord as holy,

ready at any time to give a defense to

anyone who asks you for get this, a

reason for the hope that is in you."

So my hope is not based on a feeling cuz

my feelings change day to day. My hope

is based on reason. So what's the reason

for my hopefulness? Is it a blind faith?

Is it something that I was indoctrinated

into as a young man by my parents? Is it

something that was I brainwashed by my

my early church experiences? Is that

where my hope comes from? No.

Not at all. That's not my experience.

No, my hope comes from a reason and what

is that reason? Well, 1 Peter tells us

in chapter 1 verse 3.

Blessed be the God and Father of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great

mercy, he has given us a new birth into

a living hope through the resurrection

of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Jesus rose from the dead, therefore my

hope is alive.

One commentator said, "Hope is not hype,

it's logical confidence."

So Jesus is the evidence for my hope. He

is the reason for my hope. Jesus went to

the cross and died. Jesus was placed

into a tomb as a dead man. Jesus walked

out of that tomb alive and he appeared

before hundreds of people.

That's living hope. That is sure faith.

My anchor is attached to Jesus, who is

my rock.

So, my hope is not going anywhere. The

the hopefulness that I approach life

with isn't based on speculation.

It's based on the reality that Jesus is

my living hope.

Now, I told you we're going to talk

about endurance. That's the difficult

part of Romans chapter 15 verse 4. Uh

Romans 15:4

this little thing called endurance,

because endurance is actually needed to

produce hope. So, have you ever thought

about your afflictions actually

producing something positive in your

life?

Some people do. Most people I would say

probably don't.

So, Romans chapter 5 verse 3, Paul's

Romans 5:3

talking about this.

He says, "And not only that, but we also

boast in our afflictions."

Because we know that afflictions produce

endurance, same word. And endurance

proven character, and proven character

produces what?

So, the pathway to hope actually runs

through endurance. It actually runs

through affliction. That's the Greek

word

phlipsis.

And it means pressure, tribulation,

or crushing.

But friends, how would it change your

life today if you believed that the

affliction that you were going through

right now, the affliction that you were

facing today was actually needed to

produce the hope that you need to face

tomorrow?

Like like how would it change your life

if you believed that the the pressures

that you are facing today are actually

building endurance, and that endurance

is building character, and that

character is building the hope that you

need to fight the good fight tomorrow?

Friends, if we could just get our minds

wrapped around this this idea of hope

being produced from affliction, it would

radically change our lives.

Think about it this way, gold is refined

through fire.

Diamonds are produced through pressure

and hope is found in affliction.

It's such a key concept for your faith

because in order to face your future,

you have to have hope for today.

So, the great writer J.R.R. Tolkien, he

did The Lord of the Rings, he wrote The

Lord of the Rings books. Um, he had a

quote where he said, "Despair is a

version of arrogance."

So, when I live in despair, it means

that I don't have any hope for tomorrow

because I already am predicting how

tomorrow is going to go and it's not

going to go in my favor.

So, Jesus speaks against that mindset in

Matthew chapter 6 verse 34. He says,

Matthew 6:34

"Therefore, don't worry about tomorrow

because tomorrow will worry about

itself.

Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Or as one commentator on that scripture

said, "Hope lives faithfully today

instead of anxiously tomorrow."

Hope lives faithfully today instead of

anxiously tomorrow. So, IKEA went into

they they built a place in Norfolk and

it's changed my life. Um, not for the

better.

I like their prices and I like their

design and their value. I do not like

the fact that when I order a desk and a

box shows up that it's in 9,000

different pieces and it comes with one

little tiny Allen wrench that was

created by Satan himself. Um,

and to make it worse, I I saved these

um, from my last project, little shelf.

Um, it it it it's

you open these instructions and guess

what? No words. The only thing that's in

here is this little Swedish cartoon guy

um, that just basically is making fun of

me in every picture. He's like, "You are

not smart enough to do this, sir."

That's what I read into every one of

those those pictures there. So, so

as I

I get mad. I'll just be honest. I'm

normally an instructions guy, but

without words, I don't want to deal with

it. So, I take the instructions, I throw

it to the side, and when I'm done with

the project, it looks more like a

birdhouse than a desk. Um

and also I've got like years of

emotional trauma that's going to take

years of therapy to overcome after I'm

done with this as well. But, what I've

learned from this is you don't just look

at the picture and and build by

obsessing over the picture. You got to

build these things with endurance. One

faithful step at a time. One frustrating

drawer rail at a time.

It's called endurance.

See, most of us, we want God to show us

the whole future. We need the 5-year

plan. We need the complete blueprint.

But, that's all God says.

God God says, "Just do something

productive today."

Like like

be a blessing to someone. Show kindness

to a stranger. Give to a charity. Give

to a church. Go for a walk. Pray. Read

your Bible. Do a devotional. Just do

something to build a little bit of hope

for today. Because if you string

together enough hopeful days, then

eventually something undeniable is going

to be built.

Storms and afflictions, they have this

way of making God's word actually come

out of you.

I think about a lot of scripture while

I'm trying to put together this stupid

desk. Okay?

Just keep my mind healthy.

So,

God builds hope really the same way that

I build furniture. It is slowly. It is

patiently. And it is with way more

frustration than I ever thought

possible. And so now you're probably

like, "Wait a minute. Endurance has

ruined the whole thing for me. I no

longer want this for myself. This sounds

miserable." And I would say, "Well,

guess what? It's not about you."

Hope is not about you. Romans 15:13.

Romans 15:13

Now, may the God of hope

fill you with all the joy and that peace

we talked about last week as you believe

so that you may get this overflow with

hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Hope overflows to the people that are

around you.

Paul said, "The entire Bible, all of

these scriptures were written so that

you could find hope." And then the

pressures of life, they come and they

they they crush you. These afflictions

crush you, but the word of God overflows

from you. And when the word of God

overflows from you, it produces hope.

Hope that flows into a hopeless

world.

Hope is at the center of your faith. Uh

Paul said it in 1 Corinthians. He says,

"Three things remain: faith, hope, and

love."

It it's almost like hope is the the

bridge between the two.

See, faith keeps you believing.

I believe God can, and love keeps you

serving, but the bridge between the two

is hope because it's hope that keeps you

going. It's hope that says, "I believe

God will."

So, how do you keep faith and show love?

You have to have hope. How do you endure

trials and show love? You have to have

hope. You have to stay hopeful.

Because hopeless people, they just give

up too soon.

They isolate. They struggle to love, but

these hopeful people who keep their

faith in God's word

can keep showing up for others while

while these people are trying to get it

figured out.

I I love this idea of the middle

mattering so much because uh

it's usually the hardest part of

anything. Like in the middle of a road

trip, you know, it's always the hardest.

The middle of a school semester is

pretty difficult. Uh the middle of a

workout. Um the middle of a sermon.

Okay, y'all don't understand, but the

middle of a sermon is pretty tough

because you got all this excitement at

the beginning, and then at the end you

got momentum and deadlines and close,

but in the middle, that's where people

usually quit on things. Right in the

middle. So, I think it's powerful that

right in the middle of your Bible is

Psalm 119.

So, if you cut the Bible in half,

chances are you're going to land right

there in the middle of Psalm 119. It's

the longest chapter in the entire Bible.

It's got 22 sections. It's got eight

verses in each section, and each section

represents one letter of the Hebrew

alphabet. And all throughout this

chapter, the longest one in your entire

Bible, there's one theme that is

repeated over and over and over, and it

is I put my hope in your word.

It's almost like God intentionally put

this in the middle of his Bible because

this is where we need hope the most.

It's in the middle of our grief. It's in

the middle of our uncertainties. It's in

the middle of our anxieties. It's in the

middle of our diagnosis. It's in the

middle of waiting. That's when you need

your living hope. That's when you need

the word of God the most. And it says

when you stay connected to his word,

then hope starts flowing out of your

life.

So, again, this isn't just for you. This

is for the people around you.

Because we're not being brave just for

ourselves.

We're being brave for our children.

We're being brave for our family. We're

being brave for our our our friends.

We're being brave for our church.

Cuz people are watching how we handle

afflictions. And they're going to see

whether we're hopeful or hopeless.

They're going to see whether the word of

God comes out of us or whether other

things do.

See, there are people who are struggling

with hopelessness,

and they're like,

I might have hope.

So so for us and for them, what's what's

contend for them? What's have faith for

them? What's be hopeful for them? What's

keep enduring? Let's keep the faith in

God. Let's keep saying, I believe God

can. And let's keep loving and serving.

And let's most of all, let's keep

hoping. Let's say, I believe that God

will.

Let's pray.