Hope For The Hurting

Hope for the Hurting

Country Music Song Titles:

1. If You Can’t Live Without Me, Why Aren’t

You Dead?

2. I Went Back to My Fourth Wife for the Third Time and Gave Her a Second Chance to Make a First Class Fool Out of Me

3. You’re the Reason Our Kids are so Ugly

4. I’m Ashamed to Be Here, but Not Ashamed Enough to Leave

5. I Would Kiss You Through the Screen door but It’d Strain Our Love

6. I Wouldn’t Take Her to a Dogfight, Even if I thought She Could Win

2 Cor. 1:1-4 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, To the church of God in Corinth, together with all the saints throughout Achaia: [2] Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.[3] Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, [4] who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.

A few years ago the psychology department of Duke University carried on an interesting experiment. They wanted to see how long rats could swim. In one container they placed a rat for whom there was no possibility of escape. He swam a few moments and then ducked his head to drown. In the other container they made the hope of escape a possibility for the rat. The rat swam for several hours before finally giving up. The conclusion of the experiment was just the opposite of our common conclusion. We usually say, "As long as there is life, there is hope." The Duke experiment proved, "As long as there is hope, there is life."

• All of us at some time or another are going to be hurt.

• All of us, at one point, will lose hope.

• It happened to the best of men and women in the faith; even some of the prophets in the Bible had lost hope at time; some of them were hurt and grieved because of personal loses in their lives, and at sometime in our life, it will happen to you.

Galatians 6:2 “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

• But truth be told, there are probably many here this morning dealing with unresolved hurt. Pain in their lives over something that is still lingering to this very day.

o the loss of a loved one.

o a broken relationship.

o a failure in the workplace,

o a moral failure in your life.

• unless hurts are dealt with, they will haunt you for the rest of your life.

• When we let the hurt linger, we open the door to resentment—resentment toward others, ourselves, even God.

• We try and resolve hurts in ways other than God intended. in things.

o Alcohol

o drugs.

o Shopping

o a cleaning binge.

o a drive,

o all kinds of different things.

• When you try and substitute your own method of resolving hurts, you will never resolve them, only postpone them.

Since all-night talker Larry King had heart surgery, he has received letters and gifts. No letter has affected him as much as this one. With a Bible was the following message, dated December 31: "Dear Larry, I’m so glad to hear that everything went well with your surgery. I want you to know that God was watching over you every minute, and even though I know you question that, I also know that one day it will be revealed to you. My prayer is that you remain open and God will touch your life as He has mine. Once I was a disbeliever. When I could not fill my life with basketball, I would simply substitute sex, liquid drugs, or material things to feed my internal shell-like appearance. I was never satisfied. I have finally realized after 40 years that Jesus Christ is in me. He will reveal His truth to you, Larry, because He lives." It was signed by Pete Maravich.

I. When you are hurting turn to God

When you think all is lost, remember: the Father is still on his thrown, the Holy Spirit is still in the business of saving souls, and Jesus is coming again.

Little Johnny was playing with his father’s wallet when he accidentally swallowed a quarter. He went crying to him mom, choking on the quarter. They took him to a doctor, who said that the quarter was impossible to remove without surgery, they consulted a specialist who was of the same opinion. Then came a man who said he could get the money out in a jiffy. He turned little Johnny upside down and patted him with great precision on the back of neck and, sure enough, the quarter rolled out. Everyone was amazed, the father said “You must be an expert!” The man replied, “No sir I’m just a tax collector.”