Sermon Central
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How Do You Find Hope?
Contributed by Carl Allen on Aug 3, 2005 (message contributor)
Summary: How can we find hope, when the world is falling down around us. Where do we turn to?
"HOW DO YOU FIND HOPE?"
I was recently reading an article in the magazine, "In Christianity Today" that caught my interest. The author was recounting an event that recently took place which George Bush Sr. attended in Russia. The author wrote, "As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev’s widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhev’s wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience over committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband."
How can we find such Hope like this woman in the story?
READ: Psalms 62:5-7
Four points to securing Hope in today’s world
• Silence (vv. 5)
-God will not fight for your attention.
-We cannot hear God, if we are to busy with everything
around us.
• Foundation of the Solid Rock (vv.6)
-Why would you trust in something that doesn’t provide you
with a solid foundation of security?
-You cannot have a 100% relationship with God, if you only
give it 50%. There are no cutting corners with God.
• God is your only source of Salvation (vv. 6)
- God is a jealous God and will not share His time with
others.
- Salvation = Hope
- You can loose your health, family, possessions, and
more in life, but your salvation is the one thing that
can never be taken away from you.
-With a salvation in Christ, we have a confirmed reservation
in Heaven, with no delays or cancellations.
• Source of our Strength and Refuge (vv. 7b)
-Phil. 4:13
-There is nothing you cannot do with God’s as your
strength
-Foot prints in the Sand
- This story talks about how we look back over the
sand that we just traveled. In some spots we can
see two sets of foot prints and know that God is
beside us. In other areas, we may only see one set
of foot steps. It is not that God has left your side;
this is the area that God is carrying you though,
because you could not make it on your own power
and strength.
- God will shelter us from the storms of the world that
surround us
- God will never let us be tested past a point that we cannot
handle.
