(Slide 1) Today’s message is a message full of hope because it will contain some ways that I ‘hope’ we will choose to become involved in so that we might offer hope to others. Today’s message also includes a guest speaker who will provide us with a very tangible way of offering hope to children and I will introduce her in a few moments. But, I want to spend a few moments at the start with a look at two passages out of the New Testament book of Hebrews in which hope is a key thought and focus in each.
(Slide 2) The first passage is the first verse of Hebrews 11: What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see.
Last week, in a round about way, we looked at faith. Today, we link faith and hope together because hope is a key element in faith and faith requires hope.
Hope gives direction to faith because with out it faith can be come scattered and directionless. Hope helps faith to become focus because with hope we are able to say, ‘I hope that so and so will help me.’
Faith gives strength to hope. To have a weak hope is to have a weak faith. Faith energizes hope, and a very specific hope, at that. I have faith that so and so will do what is right because they have done such and so.
Faith then is a ‘confident assurance that we hope for is going to happen’ and we read in the rest of the chapter some very important illustrations of how faith and hope worked together in many key Biblical characters.
Another passage is our main passage for today, Hebrews 10:19-25 that comes prior to these words in Hebrews 11. They are important for us to read and study as it relates to hope because what is critical for faith – what or who we have faith in and why – is also critical for hope.
And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. 20 This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us.
And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s people, 22 let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully trusting him. For our evil consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water.
23Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have, for God can be trusted to keep his promise. 24Think of ways to encourage one another to outbursts of love and good deeds. 25 And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage and warn each other, especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near.
We cannot live without faith, hope, and love and we cannot love without faith, hope, and love in God through Jesus Christ. In this passage there are three things that are important to remember and practice when it comes to hope in Christ alone.
(Slide 3) The first thing is that the basis for our hope must be in something that is solid and real.
Now by use of the phrase ‘And so,’ our main text is a summary statement of what has been previously said in the previous verses which are verses 1 through 18 of Hebrews 10. So, what was said?
Verses 1 through 18, in a nut shell, is very closely reasoned argument for the superiority of Christ sacrifice on our behalf over the old system (practiced in Old Testament times) which is succinctly summarized in verse 18: Now when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices.
No longer is a system of animal sacrifices needed for humankind to seek forgiveness of their sins from their creator. Christ, once and for all, has made it possible for us to come to God for forgiveness. But there is another side to hope that we must be aware of that I will be stressing throughout the second half of this sermon. (Slide 4) We must be hopeful people who give hope to others as we serve and care for them.
In 1 Peter 3:15 we read, ‘Instead, you must worship Christ as Lord of your life. And if you are asked about your Christian hope, always be ready to explain it.’
This verse is set in a context of suffering for doing what is right so that, as Peter makes clear in verse 16, ‘Then if people speak evil against you, they will be ashamed when they see what a good life you live because you belong to Christ.’
The basis for our hope is, and must always be, in Christ because it is Christ and what He has done for us, that makes real hope a reality. People fail us; institutions (especially this past week if we are investors and employees) fail us; we fail ourselves. But Christ cannot and does not want to fail us! If our hope is anything but Him, it is a flawed hope.
Therefore, the hope that we have through Christ is the hope that we must have for us to be hopeful people who give hope to others as we serve and care for them. How might we do that? Well there are a couple of ways that we can give hope to others.
One important group that we can and we must give hope to is children and one avenue of ministry that is available for us to participate in to give kids hope as we give them some of our time and love is Big Brothers, Big Sisters.
I am happy to have Elizabeth _____ from BBBS here with us this morning and she is going to share for a few moments some very practical ways to provide hope through their Lunch Buddy and traditional BBBS program. Elizabeth, welcome and please come and share.
(Elizabeth shares)
Thanks Elizabeth!
Now there are two other ways to share hope with those around us. One is listed in your bulletin - the penny war that has been declared on hunger here in our community through Common Grace. I challenge us to give well over the next five Sundays.
The other way has the potential to give hope to some struggling families by providing a meal to them during a new 16–week Noble County Drug Court program called ‘Celebrating Families.’ On a Sunday night at Crosspointe Church these families: children, teens, and adults, gather together for learning and fellowship in the effort to help them begin to recover from the impact of drug and alcohol addiction.
We have been asked to provide a nutritious meal for 50 people on the evening of October 26th. I believe that in this simple act of providing this meal we can provide hope for the families who are attending this program. A sign up sheet will be posted next week and we will provide the meal for that Sunday.
Finally, I want to share a letter I received from an inmate at Michigan City named ______ this past week. (Read letter.)
This is a simple act of giving someone hope who needs it! And I thank God for this act of hope and I thank the person or persons who have made this possible.
Last week I concluded with the image of a compass to illustrate the importance faith as something that we cannot live without.
(Slide 5) Today I conclude with the image of an outstretched hand to illustrate that we communicate hope through appropriate touch as we reach out to others and as we give something to them, often very simple and concrete. God works in and through those acts (which, by the way, I believe is a strength of our church) to give hope.
So let us keep reaching out and let us be hope givers whose ultimate hope points to Jesus. Amen.
