An Encounter with Jesus: Unshakable Hope

Surprised the first time we see Brandon Bial's face in

three months and he's wearing a husky jersey. Nobody, nobody.

If this is your first time here, welcome, if I've

met you. My name is Morgan Butcher bussed Be, one

of the pastors here at a Mill Creek campus, and

welcome to everyone that's joining us online. This is our

last sermon in our Encounters with Jesus series. You guys

been enjoying the series as we've been going through it

the summer. It's been great. I am beyond excited to

have our our lead pastors, Brandon and die Beals back

in town. Next week. Brandon's gonna be speaking that I

will be hosting, so make sure that you come and

join us. It'll be awesome to have them back. I

also just want to say, you know, I've been at

My wife and I, Icole, have been at the church

for seventeen years, and there have been seasons where Brandon

and I have gone on sabbatical in the past, and

we're not unfamiliar with that. But I want to give

a shout out to the team of leaders and pastors

and volunteers here at the church who have really helped,

I think pretty seamlessly move us through the summer. So

can we just thank all of our pastors and volunteers

to help. I know it's I know, it's weird. You

know when your lead pastors leave and you got to

put up with some giant, bald guy preach more often.

So I apologize about that part. We're excited to have

them back, though. We're also excited to have back our

youth ministry who just got back from summer camp. They

had an incredible time. Proud of Pastor Johnny and our

youth team. We took the largest group from our church

to a network camp that we've ever taken in the

history of our church, and that was done by our

great leaders. Look at some of these things that we

can celebrate today. Four students called into full time ministry

at camp. Come on, man, that's like so exciting and

nerve wrecking because somebody is gonna take my job. Six

students committed to launching Christian clubs on school campuses. Praise God.

Forty five students rededicated to lives have gotten five salvations.

Come on, love it God. Thankful for what God is

doing in our youth ministry. If your student is not

a part of the youth ministry. They need to be,

so get them in there with Pastor Johnny. It's a great,

great opportunity for them. If you have your Bibles, you

can open up with me today to Luke chapter twenty four.

If you don't have your Bible and you have a phone,

it's also on your phone. It's called the Bible app.

And if you don't have that, I'm just confused. But

the words will be on the screen behind me as well.

We are concluding our series and encounters with Jesus, and

the portion of scripture that we're diving into today in

Luke chapter twenty four is coming right off the heels

of Jesus's death, burial, and resurrection. And when we get

to chapter twenty four, we'll pick up in verse thirteen.

It's titled on the Road to Amaeus, and this is

what it says. It says, now the same day, same day,

being the same day that Jesus has been resurrected, so

three days after his death and burial, it should be Sunday,

the same day. Two of them were owing to a

village called Amaeus. Two of the people who had been

there in Jerusalem witnessed and watched everything that had happened

to Jesus that day. It says that they were on

their way to a village called Amaeus, about seven miles

from Jerusalem. I just went on a hike with some

friends of ours that are in town to Wallace Falls.

I think that is five miles, and that was torture,

so I can relate. They were talking with each other

about everything that it happened. And as they talked and

discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up

and walked along with them, but they were kept from

recognizing him. So here's Jesus walking with these men. He's

the resurrected Jesus is literally in the physical flesh, walking

with them on the road. And it says that as

they walked on the road, they did not recognize them,

and he asked them, what are you discussing together? As

you walk along? These men must have stood there for

a second been like, what, dude, where have you been? Right?

They say? They stood still, their faces downcast, and one

of them, named Cleopus, asked, are you only a visitor

of Jerusalem? And do you not know the things that

have happened? There in these days. What things he asks

about Jesus of Nazareth, They replied, he was a prophet.

He was a prophet powerful in word. Indeed, before God

and all the people, the chief priests and rulers handed

him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucify them.

But we had hoped, we had hoped that he was

the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what

is more, it is the third day since all of

this has taken place. I was thinking a little bit

just about my personal journey with the Lord. And I

got saved when I was seventeen years is sixteen years old.

I was a junior in high school, and I'll never forget,

you know, what happened in my life when I met

him and when I encountered Jesus. But I was thinking,

is that just a couple of years ago, I had

officially spent more time walking with Jesus than I had

not walked with Jesus. And so now every year that

I live, going forward, I feel like I'm in the positive.

I'm no longer in the red. I'm like making profit

in my relationship with Jesus. I'm moving forward. And over

the years, you know, you hear so many messages, and

we sit in church and we hear people, you know,

get up and speak messages. And I remember so many

messages on so many different things. I remember messages on faith.

I remember sermons being preached about holiness and being made

right with God and what that looks like. I remember

sermons about love, and many sermons about the birth, the life,

the passion, the death of Jesus. But for whatever reason,

either I was asleep in the service or I just

didn't remember them, I didn't remember many messages specifically about hope.

What is hope? What is hope for our life? Hope

is a desire accompanied by an expectation of or belief

in fulfillment. It's a desire accompanied by expectation of, or

belief in fulfillment. And can I just say that we

live in a day and age, and this is not

totally unfamiliar with human history, but today I just believe

we live by and large in a society, in a culture,

in a world that has forgotten what godly hope really is.

I'm not saying that we've forgotten what hope is. I'm

not saying that we've dropped it from our lexicon that

we don't use it. It's not a word that we

don't know of, But what it does seem like is

that we have forgotten what the true meaning of hope is,

that God intended that word to be for his people.

At the very least, we have diluted what true hope

really looks like and should be like for our life.

We have diluted the power of hope by using it

in unrealistic situations. Imagine with me for a moment, that

you are driving down Bothele Everett Highway at sixty five

miles an hour. I know you would never do that,

but the pursing next to you might. And you're swerving

through traffic, You're cutting through red lights. You're going so

fast you almost hit a Pomeranian puppy that somebody's walking

through the town center. This is the first dog that

I thought of. I don't know nothing against Pomeranian puppies. Okay,

you're out of control, and then all of a sudden,

the red and light, the red and blue lights start

flashing behind you right and you look in the roar

of your mirror and you say something along the lines

of I hope he isn't about to pull me over.

When you know full well hope has nothing to do

with this situation. You have put yourself in this situation.

We have diluted the meaning, the word the power of

hope into what I would categorize as wishful thinking. Right,

our society has forgotten the true meaning and the power

of what it means to hope, what it means to

have hope. But listen to what the Psalmist writes in scripture.

I love what the Psalmist writes in Psalm sixteen, verse nine.

It says, therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices.

My flesh will also rest in hope. When the Bible

talks about hope. You can see this over and over

and over. And when the Bible talks about hope, it

is never referring to hoping in or for something at

the low level of wishful thinking. Now, at the same time,

the Psalmist is also not saying, well, in life, everything

is going to be rainbows and butterflies. Friends, there will

be no problems in your future. Everything will be fine,

It'll be all right, It'll be all good and danny.

What the Psalmist might be more accurately saying, here is

in the midst, in the middle of in spite of

my temporary problems, my hope, my flesh, my life, my

soul rests secure in the steady and unfailing hands of

an almighty God. Hope is not wishful thinking. To have

hope is a confident expectation. Do you know what el

Scripture says about hope. I love what Paul says about

hope in Hebrews eleven one. It says that without hope

you cannot have faith. Listen to the words of Paul.

He says, now, faith is confident in what we hope for,

an assurance about what we do not see. What Paul

is saying to us here is that faith is only

made possible by hope, and so think of it this way.

The opposite of this statement would read like this. If

hope ever dies in our life, then faith could die too. Unfortunately,

we probably all can think of something. Somebody have known

somebody who has lost their faith. Maybe they grew up

with you in church and for whatever reason they have

slid away from faith and believing in Jesus. Maybe you

have a prodigal child who is away from the faith.

That you raise them up, knowing maybe a family member

who is strayed away from the church and from faith.

But here is what I have learned over seventeen years

doing ministry in this place, is that I've learned something

of people who have lost their faith, and it's the

reality that long before their faith ever passed away, they

had already buried hope in their life. I've met people

who have lost their peace, But can I tell you,

before they ever lost their peace, hope had already died. Now,

why does this happen? How does this happen? I want

us to notice some common language and themes throughout scripture

that we can pull from the give us an idea

of what hope should do in our life when properly placed.

Psalms thirty one twenty four It says, I don't have

these up here, so I'm just gonna say it to you.

Psalms thirty one twenty four says be strong and take heart,

all you who hope in the Lord. Psalms thirty nine

to seven. My hope is in you, Psalm seventy one

to five. For you have been my hope, sovereign Lord,

my confidence since my youth Jeremiah seventeen seven. Blessed is

the man who trusts in the Lord and whose hope

is in him Jeremiah twenty nine to eleven. You might

have a tattooed on your arm, for I know the

plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Plans

to prosper you, not to harm you. Plans to give

you a hope and the future Lamentations three twenty four.

Whoever talks about lamentations, But look at this. The Lord

is my portion, says my soul. Therefore I hope in Him.

What I am trying to help you and myself see

today is that when you and I are faithful and

able to put our trust and faith in God, friends,

your hope will never become past tense. Your hope will

never die. When we are able to put our hope

and our trust and our faith in God, our hope

will never become past tense. It will never die. We

have to learn to walk through life with the spirit

of hope. That's what it means for a Christian to

live and breathe and walk through a world that is

apart from him. It means that we have to take

on his spirit of hope. And we have to walk

through life navigating the curveballs and the things that come

in life, the tests and the trials that come through

this spirit of hope, so that our faith never dies.

There are going to be seasons, and there are going

to be times in your or in my spiritual journey

that even our best intentions of living and walking through

life's trials with a spirit of hope. Friends, they're gonna

be testing. There's going to be things that happen in

our life that are going to put to test the

very way you and I say that we hope in

who Jesus is for our life. And as we look

back on the text from Luke chapter twenty four, these

men Cleopus and Simon are walking down the road to

Emmaeus and they have been hoping. In fact, they quite

literally say to Jesus, they don't know it's Jesus. They

just think it's some stranger that they're interacting with. They

quite literally say to him, not knowing that they're talking

to the resurrected King. We were hoping. Verse twenty one

says we had hoped that he was the one who

is going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it's

the third day. Since this has taken place, Why is

that significant? Why is it significant this third day? Well,

in Hebrew culture, it was believed that once a person

was believed dead, they would be laid in a tomb

and it would they would be given three days to

wake up from from whatever, from whatever reason, you know,

a coma or you know, whatever medical term we would

want to give it. It did happen in those days

where within three days the person would wake up, whether

they thought that they were dead and they just happened

to wake back up. They were given three days. But

once the third day had come, it was believed that

this person was gone. There was no hope. You might

remember back when Jesus went to the home where Lazarus was,

and Lazarus had been dead for three days, and Mary

and Martha are sitting there like if you had all

they come earlier, like you're a little late three days.

And here's Simon and Cleopas thinking, if it's been three days,

our hope is gone. What I want you to see

is not only had their hope failed, but what happens

when hope fades is that the visions that we had

attached to the hope begin to fade too. The visions

of what we thought was going to be, the visions

of what we had expected, begin to fade when hope

faid's with it. Here is Jesus in the physical and

literal form, walking on the road with these men. But

because something happened that disrupted their hope, It disrupted their life.

It disrupted the vision of what they had been believing

in for all these years following Jesus. They had put

together a vision in their mind of who Jesus would

be for them, of what Jesus would do, of the

timeline and the circumstances and the freedom that they would

experience because the Messiah was here, the man who claimed

to be who he said he was was here, and

they had built a vision around who their hope was

vested in. And something happened that disrupted this hope, that

went against the vision that they had believed for for

so many years, watching Jesus do miracles, listening to his teachings,

following him and seeing everything that he did, everything that

we've talked about in this series following the life of Jesus.

They had seen it, they had heard it, they had

witnessed it, and with it hope was rising in a

vision of who he was was being created in their head,

and all of a sudden a disruption has moved them

from having hope in Jesus to hoping in Jesus, to

a past tense version that said, we were hoping in

who Jesus was for us. But what's more, it's the

third day, and the hope that we had, the vision

that we had of who this man would be, is lost.

Have you ever been their friends? Have you ever been

in the place where where hope just seems to be gone.

Maybe you had hope at one point, but it's got

to a point. There was a disruption in your life.

Something happened, and maybe you're there right now. Maybe there

was a time when you were certain that God was

with you, that God was for you, that God saw

you and walked with you and cared for you. But

something happened, Something disrupted you. Someone failed you, someone hurt you,

a circumstance arose, the finances weren't there, somebody said something,

a loved one left you, a loved one died. You

could go on and on and on. But something disrupted

the hope that was being created within you. There was

a disruption in your life, and the disruption was not

only to your life, but it disrupted your hope in

who you thought Jesus was for your life, and you

started thinking things like, well, if Jesus is real, why

am I going through this? If Jesus is real, then

why are we where we are right now? If Jesus

is real, why are me and my spouse in this situation?

If Jesus this was real, why is my son and

my daughter so far from him? Why didn't God come

through there? Why didn't God help me there? Why didn't

God do it?

Then?

We had hoped in who Jesus was, but because of

what happened, I don't really know. And here, friends, lies

the struggle with our faith. The struggle is is that

sometimes the will and the timing of God is going

to play out different than the vision or idea that

you had played out in your head. Sometimes the timing

the will of God is going to look different than

the vision that you had when you accepted Jesus in

your life and you started walking through life and you

thought you knew where life was going, and all of

a sudden, there's something that has come up, and now

you're starting to question, man, do I really still believe

what I thought I believed about who Jesus was for me?

And it's in these moments, friends, you better know that

you know that you know that you know that your

hope is in Jesus and not in man, that your

hope is in the eternal and not in the temporary.

Because friends, listen to me. You can lose your home

and that would suck. You could lose a loved one

and that would be one of the most painful things

you've ever experienced. You could have a loved one hurt

you and betray you something that you never thought would

have happened. You could lose your car, You could lose

your job, You could even lose out on a dream.

And if your hope is based on temporary things, friends,

you will lose your hope. But hear me say this morning,

you can never lose your hope if your hope is

in Jesus. You can never lose your hope if your

hope is in Jesus. And so often we base what

is going on in our life off of the temporary

things that eruptions that are happening around us. These disciples

are on the road to Amais and listen. These were

godly men. These were men who knew the Lord and

followed Jesus and listen to his teaching and believe what

he said. Scripture tells us that they were traveling from

Jerusalem heading to Amaus on the Sunday night following jesus crucifixion,

three days after they had watched Jesus die. Let me

paint the picture for you. These guys had been walking

for about seven miles. Amais lies west of Jerusalem. They're

they're walking into the sunset. It literally sounds like the

ending of a really sad cowboy movie. Got Sheryl Crow

song on the back of my head. I just saw

her last night. She was amazing. I'm talking. Oh they're sad,

They're dejected, They're they're feeling empty, they're feeling gutted. And

the sun goes down and then they're walking off into

the sunset. They are gutted by everything that they have

just watched happen. They are gutted by the realization that Jesus,

the guy who they believed was going to bring freedom

for them in Israel, could actually be dead. And they're

walking to Amais and they are for sure, thinking what now?

What now? Because everything that I have given my life

to follow for the last several years, I feel like

I'm just walking right back to where I was. They're

probably wondering was any of that real? Did any of

that matter? Were the things that I saw him do,

the things that I heard him say that the belief

that I had was that real? Well? What am I

supposed to do with this current reality that I'm faced

with that Jesus could possibly be dead? Maybe you know

that feeling, that feeling of receiving news that just takes

the wind out of you. You're left feeling hollow, and

you wonder where do I even go from here? What

do I even do with this news? What do I

do now? And these men are walking to Amis, depressed, sad, empty,

And what they didn't know at this moment was that

the reality was that while they were walking to a

Mais believing that Jesus was dead, the reality was is

that Jesus was alive, that Jesus had been resurrected. He

was dead, but now he's alive. But for Caleapus and

Simon walking to Amaus, it didn't matter what the reality

was in that moment, come on, you know what I'm

talking about. Sometimes the things that we're faced with, they

become more reality than the actual reality and the truth

of the world around us. Can I say that that

sometimes human nature will do this to us. Human nature

looks past the reality and it so often focuses on

our current perspective. Maybe I'm I'm the only one in

here that knows this. I don't know. Maybe you've experienced

this too. This happens every day in our world where

the current reality becomes more of a truth than the

actual reality, Where the things that I'm walking through become

more of a truth than who God was for me.

Then the current reality comes more of a truth than

what reality in the correct perspective, and maybe even what

the word of God would say is true. And this

happens every day around us every day, and you're in

my life. Lies are birthed into our lives every day

through a broken perspective. Can I tell you? Friends, every

day people will look into the mirror and conclude that

they are unworthy because of what they see. Every Day

people will wrestle with depression and anxiety and conclude that

they are broken and things will never get better. Every

day parents will argue and get frustrated and lose their

cool with their kids and conclude that they're just not

meant to be parents. Every Day people will get laid

off from work or blow up a deal and conclude

that they're just a failure, that they're never going to

amount to anything. It doesn't matter what the truth is,

It doesn't matter what reality is. You and I so

often will believe what we just see right in front

of us, even though what we are looking at is

a distorted perspective. At times, our perspective often seems more

real than the reality itself. And for Cleopus and Simon,

it didn't matter what was. It only mattered what seemed

in that moment, and what seemed in that moment was

that all hope was lost. The disciples said, we were

hoping in who Jesus was. Their perspective was distorted by

what they had seen happened to Jesus on the cross.

They were hoping that it would be done their way.

Cleopis and Simon, much like probably many other people there

that lived and knew and watched Jesus, had an idea

built up in their head of who Jesus would be,

of what things would happen, and of how all this

would play out. They were hoping it would be done

in their timing. They would be hoping it would be

done in their way. Their hope wasn't in Jesus. Their

hope was in their own ideas of what they thought

Jesus was gonna do. They were saying, we didn't think

it would be like this. We weren't expecting this to happen.

You see, even these godly men had become distorted in

their hope. Their hope was based on what they saw,

what they heard, what they touched, what they tasted, what

they felt. But Church, hear me say it this morning.

That's not hope. It's not hope. Genuine hope is not

based on your subjective outlook. Our subjective outlook is subjective, right,

it's stewed, it's biased, it's broken. But friends, listen, let

me say, when our outlook is built upon the foundation

of Christ, then our hope is eternal, Our hope is unchanging.

Why Why Because that is who Jesus is for you

and I. And because of that, there is no weapon

in hell, There is no lie, there is no demonic

stronghold that can overcome it. The devil himself cannot steal

hope from you when your hope is founded in Jesus.

Are you with me this morning? But every day we

have to decide where is our hope? What are we

gonna do when when a hope feels lost? When we

have to face this current situation, in this current perspective,

Cleopis and Simon were traveling on this road, and they

were confused, They were tired, their hope had died, their

hope had become past tense. And here is the resurrected

king of the world standing right beside them on the road,

and Jesus, seeing them downcast, seeing them sad, ask the question,

what are you talking about? Why are you so sad?

And cleop Is thinking that this guy is clearly crazy,

Like what if you've been literally like living under a rock,

which ironically he kind of was for the last couple

of days. He's like, have you not heard? Have you

not heard? What happened? They said? Jesus is dead, he

was beaten, he was hung and across he died. We

watch him take his last breath, We saw him wrap

him in linens and place him in the tube. And

we left Jerusalem because we just assumed it was. It's over.

The thing that we had been hoping for is gone.

And here we are on the way back to ammaas

and it's been three days, which means everything that we

had believed in, everything that we had hoped for, all

of the ideas of what we thought was going to

be are dead with it. Our hope is crushed, our

peace is gone, our faith has dried up. But then

this stranger or who they think he's a stranger, begins

to rebuke them. Look at what Jesus says to them, Well,

they don't know it's Jesus, this guy. He looks at them,

and he says, how foolish are you? How slow to

believe all the prophets have spoken? Did not the Messiah

have to suffer these things? And then enter his glory?

And look at what he does. He goes all the

way back, He goes all the way back to the scripture,

that they would be so familiar with the scripture that

Jesus himself taught them and spoke on. He goes back

to Moses and goes through all the prophets, and he

explained to them that what to them, what was said

in all the scriptures concerning himself and friends, this is

not the message that I came to speak this morning,

but it is a message that maybe somebody in here

needs to receive this morning. And it's sometimes when you

have lost your hope, the number one thing that you

can do in life is to go back to who

God has been for you. Is to go back all

the way to the beginning. Friends, there's times that I

have to go back to sixteen year old Morgan, and

I have to remember who God was for me in

that moment, that moment of sin, that moment of wretch,

that moment of ugliness. And I have to remember who

God has been for me. And look, if someone meets

me on the road and I am struggling in my life,

I've been facing some things and my hope is gone.

You know. The last thing that I want is for

someone to come up and rebuke me, like, dude, back off.

Life sucks already, right. But there must have been something

about the way that the strangers spoke to them, because

even though he scolded them, made something about the way

he spoke to them made Simon and Cleapus invite him

to dinner. In fact, Scripturlity says that they beg Jesus

to spend the evening with them in their home. So

Jesus goes with them. And while Jesus is at their home,

it says that this happened in Luke, chapter twenty four,

verse thirty. It says, when he was with them at

the table, he took bread and he gave thanks, and

he broke it and he began to hand it around them,

and it says, in this moment, you've just got to

like it. Sometimes when you read scripture, you just got

to close your eyes and just imagine being in the

room when they believe that all hope is lost, when

they don't even know who they're sitting across the table from.

And the same God who broke bread with his people

so many times is sitting across the table, and he

takes the bread and he breaks it and he gives

thanks to them. And it says in verse thirty one

that their eyes were open and they recognized who was

sitting across the table, And it says in that moment,

he disappeared from their sight and they began to ask

each other, were not our hearts burning within us? While

he was talking with us on the road, when he

opened the scriptures and began to speak to us. And

it says that that there was so stirred that they

got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. Then when

they got there, they found the eleven and those that

were with them assembled together, and they said to them,

it is true the Lord has risen and appeared to Simon. Friends,

What caused these men's dead hope to be resurrected? What

caused their lifeless hope to come back to life? They said,

our hearts burned within us when we talked to him.

You know what happened. I'll tell you what happened. It's

a very simple truth, but so important for our faith.

What happened was in the middle of their hopelessness, they

invited Jesus into their pain. They invited this man into

their circumstances. They sat across the table from the King

of the universe, and they allowed him to speak into

their lives. They broke bread, they shared communion together, and

through their nearness to God, their hope was reborn. Church,

do not complicate the scripture more than you need to

this morning. Some of you are in a place where

hope is gone. And the number one thing that you

need to hear this morning. Is that the job of you,

when hope feels like it's lost, is to say, God,

come near to me. Now, God, I invite you into

my pain. I invite you into my hopelessness. I invite

you into my situation. I invite you into my desperation.

They talked about Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and

everything before this was past tense. Jesus was a prophet,

Jesus was a great teacher. Jesus was a healer. Jesus

was a miracle worker. They were hoping, but now he's dead.

They're broken. Person had killed the reality that their hope.

And because of what they saw, everything that happened to

Jesus on the cross, they only now could consider God

to be past tense in their life. But when Jesus

showed up, when Jesus met them on the road, when

he walked beside them, when he went into their house,

when he broke bread with them, and he blessed it,

Jesus was proving something to them that moment, that he

might be reminding us here in this room today. Yes,

he is the God of the past, but friends, even

more so, he is the god of your present realities

and regardless of what pain, regardless of what hopelessness, regardless

of what you may be feeling, and the perspective of

life right now that you may be feeling, whatever road

that you walked into this church on this morning, Can

I tell you right now, God will meet you on

exactly the path that you're on. He will meet you

right where you're at. And if you are faithful to say, God,

I invite you. In God, I trust you. Friends, Can

I tell you that it is in your nearness to

God that your hope is reborn? And Friends, when you

don't know what tomorrow will bring, when you don't know

what the next day will bring, when you're worried about

a year from now because of the disruptions that you're feeling,

can I tell you you can stand firm and confident

in your faith because He's not just the God of

the past. He's not just the God of the present.

He's the God of your future. And if your hope

has been shaken, regardless of your perspective today, can I

remind you that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forevermore.

If your hope is gone, it's time to stop placing

your hope in the world of temporary and say, God,

you are my hope and my hope alone. The biggest

lie ever told about knowing Jesus is that walking with

him will keep you from walking through difficulties. It is

a lie from the pit of hell. It is an

absolute lie. But let me encourage you with the truth

of who God is. It's just like Cleopus and Simon, God,

you and your downcast He sees your broken spirit, he

sees your pain, he sees your doubt, he sees your

hope on life support, and he gladly steps down from

heaven and will meet you on whatever road you walked

in here on today. And he will meet you with comfort.

He will meet you with peace, He will meet you

with assurance, and he will meet you with the hope

that you can build your life on moving forward. He

will never leave you or forsake you. And here's the

greatest news that we could ever receive. It's that an

encounter with the hope of Jesus is available for you

and I today, right here, right now, regardless of where

you've been, regardless of what's going on, regardless of what

disruptions you've been faced with, in your life. You can

invite Jesus to be the hope of your life today

and he will meet you and sit with you and

have communion with you here today. Amen. So here's what

I want to do. I want to ask you about

your heads and close your eyes in this room, and

I want to give you an opportunity to do just

that this morning. Maybe you're here today and you would say, Morgan,

my hope is on life support. I've been faced with

some things. There's somebody watching online right now. I just

know him. And the words you need to hear today

is that hope is not lost. Maybe you're here this

morning and you feel this deep burden, like man, my

hope in Jesus has become a thing in the past

because of the present realities, the present perspective of what's

been going on in my life. And if you're here

this morning and say, Morgan, I need to put my

hope back in Jesus today, I'm inviting God to come

back into my life, the nearnest to God, to be

the thing that brings me hope for my today and

for my tomorrow. If that's you here this morning, you

want me to save this prayer over you. Would you

just lift your hand right now wherever you are.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you, thank you. See that hand, thank you,

thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

Thank you, thank you. You can put your hands down.

Last thing is this. Maybe you're here this morning and

you have never had a relationship with Jesus. You have

never walked into relationship with him. Maybe you're here right

now and you're watching online and you've never had a

relationship with Jesus. Can I just tell you that an

encounter with Jesus is available today for you. You can

walk out of this place having the hope of Jesus

be the foundation of your life. And if that's you

here this morning and you just want to say, I

want to make God the center of my life. I

want to put my hope and who He is for

my life. If that's you here this morning, would you

just lift your hand? Thank you? Here, come on, praise God.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

To see that hand, thank you, thank you, thank you,

thank you, thank you.

You can put your hands down. Can we celebrate that

decision in the room this morning? Come Oncome come on,

would you do me a favorite. Would you stand to

your feet with me. I want to pray over us

this morning as we close, for those of you that

raised your hand, or those of you that didn't felt

like you should have, for those of you that raised

your hand for the first time to say, Jesus, I

want to make you the Lord of life. I'm gonna

say this prayer over all of us this morning, and

we'll believe it as a church today. Amen, let's close

our eyes by our head. Father, God, we thank you

for who you are in our life. God, you are

the hope of our life. God Father, we say, God,

would you come in and allow us to take a

step away from the perspective that we've been walking with God,

the disruptions in our life that have taken robbery our

mind and taken captive our hope. God, And would you

help us to walk away from that? God? And would

you help us to have hope and life and truth

in things eternal God, things on changing? God Father, we

say today that our hope is in you and you

alone for our life. And when our hope is in You,

no scheme of the enemy can stand against it. God,

no lie of the enemy can be true. God, our

hope is in who you are for our life God.

And so Father, we walk out of this place today

with the courage, the hope, the truth that you are

in control, God, that you are the God of yesterday,

you are God of today, and you are the God

of tomorrow. And we say together as Church, God, we

love you and we trust you in Jesus' mighty name.

And everyone said Amen.