Inspired Hope

When Abram lived in Ur of the Chaldees with his father Tera and his nephew Lot and their families, Abram would get up in the morning, have his breakfast, read the newspaper, go to work, come home, have dinner, watch the TV news, read a book, go to bed, get up in the morning, have his breakfast, read the newspaper, go to work, come home, have his dinner, read the TV news, have a couple beers, and go to bed. One day his father Tera said, let's get out of this rut. Undoubtedly Tera was being inspired in some way by the living God.

Let's go to the land of Canaan. And so Abram, Tera, Lot, and their families packed everything up and headed southwest toward the land of Canaan. But long before they got there, they stopped to rest in a place which was very pleasant, and they named it Haram, which really was the name of Abram's dead brother.

Oh, was they another day or two, then another day or two more, then another day or two more, and pretty soon Abram got up in the morning, had his breakfast, read the newspaper, went to work, came home, had his dinner, watched the TV news, read a book, and went to bed. Then his father Tera died. Then God spoke to Abram.

Reading from Genesis 12, 1. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. So Abram packed up his things, his family, and headed out, not knowing whether he went.

And from that day on Abram never again got back into that rut he was in. He was on the move. He ended up in the land of Canaan, which turned out to be indeed the land of promise God gave him.

God showed him the land and said, this is where your children will be. Long before he ever had any children, and he was already an old man. But Abram, even when he was in the land of Canaan, kept moving.

Never settled down again the rest of his life because he was driven by a hope, which was given to him by God. And in that hope, Abram saw a city which has eternal foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Abram had a great-grandson, came much later, named Joseph.

Joseph had this hope burning inside him when he was still very young, in his teens. He knew already that he was a man of destiny. One day he shared his hope with his brothers.

He said, I had a dream, and I saw the moon and the sun and eleven stars bowing down to me. And his eleven brothers were incensed. What do you mean? Your mother and your father and we, your eleven brothers, are going to bow down to you? Never! And to make sure it would never happen, they sold him to some Midianite merchants as a slave, who passed him on, sold him again, to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard.

As a slave in Potiphar's house, Joseph continued to pursue that hope. Potiphar's wife, very pretty girl, took a liking to Joseph. Get him aside one day and said, Joseph, I really like you, feel attracted to you.

I could make life very good for you. Why don't you just settle down? Have breakfast, read the newspaper, do your little chores around the house, have dinner, watch the TV news, and when my husband is off on business, go to bed with me. Joseph wouldn't let himself be distracted because he was being driven by a hope.

He saw something far more wonderful, a joy far more fulfilling than any pleasure this woman could ever offer him. And so he refused again and again until she got so angry, she accused him of the very thing he refused to do, and he got thrown in jail. Years are spent in prison, and he's still driven by this hope, until the day the hope is fulfilled, at least partially, when he's lifted out of prison, becomes the number two man in all of Egypt, and becomes the means by which his father and his eleven brothers are saved from extinction.

But the hope that drove Abraham was not just see the hope of the land of Canaan, it was something far beyond. He saw a city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God, and the hope which drove Joseph was not just a hope of becoming a leader in Egypt, something far greater, it was the hope of a kingdom whose author and finisher is God. The hope of Abraham and of Joseph, the hope upon which our hearts are also to be fixed, is the kingdom of God.

When the reign of God on this earth will be visible to every human eye, and every evil will be judged, all injustice, every hurt, every tear will be dried, and God's name will be vindicated, and so we read in Romans 8, 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory which is to be revealed to us. Hope, for the creation waits with eager longing for the manifestation of the sons of God. Hope, for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope, because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay, to obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now, not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons. The redemption of our bodies, for in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? If we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Hope that's fixed on a day when the sons of God will rise out of the dust, lay aside these bodies corruptible of flesh and blood, and stand with the Messiah to serve the purposes of God and vindicate his name in a kingdom that will be righteous, and will be fair, and will be perfect, and will be holy. And we hear from the mouth of the one who is the Messiah a description of what that will be like. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, hope.

Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted, hope again. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, hope. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, they shall be satisfied, it's going to come.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

We weren't born into this world in order to get up in the morning, have our breakfast, read the newspaper, go to work or looking for work, come home, have supper, watch the TV news, read a magazine, and go to bed. We were born into this world and called by the Spirit of God to prepare this earth for the day when the sons of God will be manifested, male and female, the new creation. And we have to decide whether we're going to continue to stagnate in the swamp of monotony, or whether we're going to live in hope.

Now you could say there are three kinds of hope. Wish hope, dream hope, and inspire, divinely inspired hope. Wish hope is when we wish, and it's cheap.

What do you pay for lottery tickets now, fifty cents? A dollar. Still cheap. You can have wish hope for a dollar a day.

Buy yourself a lottery ticket and wish you're going to win. Buy another one tomorrow and wish you're going to win. That's right, Leroy, sometimes you don't.

Lost again. There goes another dollar, Leroy. Amen.

That's right, Leroy. What happens with this wish hope is that you can continue to have your little wishes and still get up in the morning, have your breakfast, read the newspaper, go to work, etc. You never change.

And even if you win, and you win big, a million dollars, life goes on just like it did before. You get up in the morning, have your breakfast, read the newspaper, and now you don't need to work, so you go out and try to keep yourself occupied. Come home, have dinner, watch the TV news, read a book, fall asleep, and go to bed.

Then there is dream hope. Many a man and many a woman has dreamed of a better world, of a world where there would be justice, where the courts would be fair, where the laws would be fair, and where everybody would have a fair opportunity and things would be free. Sometimes these people with this dream found each other and formed a revolution.

And after years, years of sacrifice and work, and often bloodshed, the revolution would succeed. And it would look now as if we finally have a government that's going to be right. Everybody has a fair share.

Everybody's going to have a fair opportunity. The courts are going to be right with everybody. And within six months' time, most of the time it turns out that the government which now exists through the revolution offers less fairness, less freedom, less opportunity than the one it replaced.

Because the dream was an illusion. It did not take into account the nature of man or the way things really are in this world. And finally there is inspired hope.

Hope which is given to us by God as he opens our eyes and enables us to see beyond the visible to the one thing in this world worth living for and dying for, his kingdom. Jesus came into this world in order to call us out of our little wish hopes, our endless wish hopes, and deliver us from our dream hopes that disappoint us again and again, and to call us into his kingdom. He came to bring us to the place where our eyes would open and we could see beyond, to that kingdom where the sons of God, the daughters of God, rise out of the earth and serve the Messiah and are used by God to usher in the only just society we will ever see on this planet.

Every word Jesus spoke was a revelation of the kingdom of God. Again and again he mentions it, he teaches it in our prayer, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. Every sign, every healing Jesus performed or still performs is a manifestation of the kingdom of God.

Jesus' death on the cross was the opening of the door so that we can get into the kingdom. His resurrection and the outpouring of his spirit was the reaching out of his own hand to bring us into the kingdom. And today as we gather in his name, he breathes upon us by his spirit and enables us, if we will be open to him and receptive and honest, enables us to begin to see that kingdom and press forward toward it in hope.

Jesus died on the cross and rose again in order that we might have a hope and be breathed in with a hope of the kingdom of God. Reading once again from Romans chapter 8 verse 18, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory which is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revelation, the manifestation of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope. Because this creation will be set free from its bondage to decay to obtain the glorious liberty of the sons of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now.

Not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait for our redemption, our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. In this hope we are saved. And the clearer the hope of the kingdom is on our minds and hearts, the less likely we are to be distracted by every little wish hope and dream hope that comes along.

The reason it was possible for Joseph to keep batting away the temptations that Potiphar's wife put in front of him. The reason was because Joseph had in his eye and mind a vision of God's kingdom and his purpose. And that was so clear and so bright, what she was offering him was nothing.

Jesus died on that cross and rose again in order to breathe into us a hope of our own release. And so we read in 1 John chapter 3, verse 2. Beloved, we are now the sons of God. It does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself even as he is pure. And so by the Spirit we begin to see the banquet table of the Lord and the Lord at the head of that banquet table. And we also see ourselves sitting there with the apostles and the prophets and the martyrs and the saints of old.

By the power of the Spirit we are enabled to begin to see that great multitude which no man could number standing before the throne. With palm branches in their hand before the Lamb, praising and worshiping the living God. And we see ourselves in that number.

See ourselves there. And we begin to understand that this world is not our home. Nobody stays here.

Nobody stays here. We're all going to be gone from here, this world as we know it, before very long. And we're either going to be in that multitude which no man could number or we're going to be in the wasteland of hell.

But nobody stays here. And when we try to make our nest comfortable and build ourselves a little, you know, kind of heaven of our own here in this world, we end up bitterly disappointed, terribly surprised. Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust corrupt and thieves break through and steal.

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth and rust do not corrupt. Thieves can't break in and steal. Jesus died on that cross and rose again in order to breathe into us the life of the Holy Spirit.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit to enable us to press on toward that hope and never give up. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives us the power to keep on pushing in until we're there. And so we read from Romans 15, 13.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. And jumping over to Philippians 3, 12. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Brethren, I do not consider that I have already made it my own, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. The power to press on is given to us by the Holy Spirit who is in our midst. The Holy Spirit is already a foretaste of the coming glory.

Every gift the Spirit gives, every word he speaks to our hearts, every revelation that comes to us and every dream he inspires in us becomes not an illusion but a vision of the kingdom. And it's a foretaste of that glory so that not only do I see the glory up ahead at the end of the road, I have it burning in my heart, that's what keeps me going. And if I have that, I never wear out, I can keep pressing on.

The Holy Spirit is also our guide to the kingdom. When the Comforter has come, he will guide you into all truth. Not just intellectual truth, but the truth which is the kingdom itself.

And he keeps guiding us on. When we get off the track, he pushes us back on. When we fall off to the other extreme, he helps us back on.

Finally, the Holy Spirit is the helper. The Paraclete, the Comforter, the one who helps us to keep going. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness for we don't know how to pray as we ought.

But the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. He is the one who helps us to see the kingdom. He will take what is mine and show it to you, Jesus says.

He will show you things to come. He opens our eyes to the kingdom. Now, every tree becomes a sign of the kingdom as it stretches its branches toward the Father in worship and prayer.

Every sunrise, every sunset, the rushing wind, the thunder, the lightning, the mighty rivers all tell us about the coming glory. And we keep pressing on. And so today, the God who called Abraham out of Haran to leave his country and his kindred and his father's house, to go to a land that he would show it, the Lord who called Andrew, Peter, James, and John to leave their fishing and follow him is calling us to leave our comfortable but monotonous ruts and pursue the hope he inspires in us even today as he now breaks bread with us.

And in the breaking of that bread, the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood, he wipes away time and we see the last supper, Jesus with the disciples. And we also see the marriage supper of the Lamb, gathered with him, the saints, the prophets, the apostles, the martyrs, and we among them. And by the Spirit, he gives us the power to press toward that, to see it, rejoice in it, and go for it.

I consider that the sufferings of this present time or the boredom of this present time are not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God that we should be among them. And in this hope we are safe.

But we have to decide whether we're going to continue to stagnate in a swamp of monotony and insecurity or whether we're going to live in hope and pursue that hope all the way. Let's take some time and let the Spirit speak to us in silence. Silence.

Let's just let the Spirit speak. I'll break the silence with prayer in a few minutes. May the Spirit speak to each of our hearts, each according to our need.