Speaker 1: Did you know you can't have faith without hope. Most
Speaker 1: people don't realize this. You have to have hope in
Speaker 1: order to have faith. If there's nothing to hope for,
Speaker 1: there's nothing to believe for. If you didn't have the
Speaker 1: hope of heaven, then you don't need to believe in heaven.
Speaker 1: So faith and hope actually go together. You can't have
Speaker 1: faith without hope. Now, we know a lot about faith,
Speaker 1: but most people don't know a lot about hope. And
Speaker 1: so that's why when the Bible says the three greatest
Speaker 1: virtues are faith, hope, and love. Well that we know
Speaker 1: about love and we know about faith, but we're not
Speaker 1: so sure about this hope thing. And that's why next
Speaker 1: year in a series we're going to go into it
Speaker 1: in detail. But a certain hope is Christian hope. Let
Speaker 1: me show you verse Look here on the screen, are
Speaker 1: there on your outline? Hebrews six, verse nineteen. Here's one
Speaker 1: example the certain hope circle that the certain hope of
Speaker 1: being saved, that if you've trusted Christ, you're going to
Speaker 1: be saved, is a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. Now,
Speaker 1: in certain hope, there's no doubt, there's no doubt. In
Speaker 1: certain hope, there's no hesitation, there's no reservation, there's no uncertainty,
Speaker 1: there's no well, I'm hoping, But what if you don't?
Speaker 1: What if in certain hope, I don't say, what if
Speaker 1: I don't go to heaven? That's doesn't even enter my mind.
Speaker 1: Because my entrance into heaven is a certain hope. It
Speaker 1: doesn't enter my mind. What if I don't make it.
Speaker 1: Certain hope means it's sure, it's confident, it's sure, it's guaranteed.
Speaker 1: You can count on it. Now, the Bible says, this
Speaker 1: is the kind of hope. God wants you to build
Speaker 1: your life on. This real hope, not phony hope. This
Speaker 1: real hope. This certain hope has three characteristics and they're
Speaker 1: all mentioned in that verse. It says it's strong. First,
Speaker 1: it's strong. This certain hope of being saved is strong.
Speaker 1: That means it's solid. It's sturdy, it's stable, it's firm,
Speaker 1: it's unchanging. It's strong, it's not a week hope. And
Speaker 1: then it says it's trustworthy. Circle that word circle strong
Speaker 1: and trustworthy means it's dependable, it's reliable. You can bet
Speaker 1: your life on it, on certain hope. And then it
Speaker 1: says it's an anchor. Circle the word anchor. Now, what
Speaker 1: is the purpose of an anchor? You see, the Bible says,
Speaker 1: hope is the anchor for your soul.
Speaker 2: So what is that? So why do I need hope?
Speaker 1: It's often said that you can go weeks without food.
Speaker 1: Some of us could go a little longer than that.
Speaker 1: You can go days without water, you can go minutes
Speaker 1: without air, but you can't go five seconds without hope.
Speaker 1: You have to have hope to live. When you lose
Speaker 1: all hope, you die. You've got to have hope. So
Speaker 1: he says, hope is the anchor of the soul. What
Speaker 1: is the purpose of an anchor in a ship or
Speaker 1: in a boat, Well, that's two purposes. The first purpose
Speaker 1: is to keep the ship from drifting, and the second
Speaker 1: is to add stability in a storm. These are the
Speaker 1: very two things you need in your life. This is
Speaker 1: why we need to study hope, because you need it
Speaker 1: for an anchor for the same two reasons. The ship
Speaker 1: needs an anchor, And the Bible says, the anchor of
Speaker 1: your soul.
Speaker 2: Is not money, it's not fame, it's not all these
Speaker 2: other things.
Speaker 1: The anchor of your soul is hope when you've got hope,
Speaker 1: and the stronger your hope, the stronger you be anchored
Speaker 1: of Hope is like an anchor because it keeps the
Speaker 1: boat from drifting. And there's a chain obviously on that anchor.
Speaker 1: And so if the boat starts to drift, it only
Speaker 1: drifts in a certain circle, can't go any further fixedirfule,
Speaker 1: you know, if you don't have an anchor, a boat
Speaker 1: can drift into unsafe water. And what's interesting is, and
Speaker 1: if you've ever been on boats for an extended period times,
Speaker 1: it's easy to drift. Have you noticed this in your life.
Speaker 1: It's easy to drift. It's easy to drift away from God.
Speaker 1: It's easy to drift away from your goals. It's easy
Speaker 1: to drift away from the person you love. It's easy
Speaker 1: to drift away from your dream. We are constantly drifting
Speaker 1: if we are not anchored. And he says, hope is
Speaker 1: the anchor of your soul, and you can drift without
Speaker 1: even knowing it.
Speaker 2: He said.
Speaker 1: The other purpose, as I said, of an anchor, is
Speaker 1: it gives you stability in a storm. And when you
Speaker 1: let down an anchor in the middle of a storm
Speaker 1: and you're out in the middle of an ocean. It
Speaker 1: reduces pitch and roll in bad weather. Now, the oldest
Speaker 1: anchors actually were just rocks and then they drill a
Speaker 1: hole in them and put a little chain on them,
Speaker 1: or they wear a basket of stones and things like that.
Speaker 1: But the best designed anchors actually have hooks. Let me
Speaker 1: show you a couple. Let me show you up here.
Speaker 1: Here's an example. You've seen this kind of anchor. It's
Speaker 1: got a hook in it, so it hooks itself into
Speaker 1: the bedrock of the ocean floor. Let me show you
Speaker 1: some big anchors. Here's a chain.
Speaker 2: That is a.
Speaker 1: Chain for a typical like an oil tanker. Each of
Speaker 1: those links weighs five hundred pounds. Okay, I mean it
Speaker 1: makes that man look like a mini figure from Legos. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: everything is awesome as he walks through those chains. All right,
Speaker 1: but that's just the chain. Let me show you a
Speaker 1: picture of the largest anchor in the world. There it
Speaker 1: is right there. Now, look how these people see how
Speaker 1: it's like almost got like a saw tooth in it says,
Speaker 1: that's seventy five tons that anchor. You can imagine what
Speaker 1: it takes to lift and lower that in the ocean.
Speaker 1: Now here's the point. The bigger your ship, the bigger
Speaker 1: your anchor. Now, if you want to live a little, tiny,
Speaker 1: puny life, you don't need.
Speaker 2: A very big anchor.
Speaker 1: But if you want to live a big life, a
Speaker 1: full life, what Jesus called an abundant life, a life
Speaker 1: to the fullest, you're going to need an anchor. Because
Speaker 1: you are going to have storms in your life. You
Speaker 1: are going to go through rogue winds and tidal waves
Speaker 1: in every area, financial, moral, ethical, every area. You're going
Speaker 1: to have these mental physical tidal waves in your life.
Speaker 1: You better have an anchor to keep you from drifting,
Speaker 1: and you better have an anchor to keep you from
Speaker 1: the pitch and roll and the instability that happens when
Speaker 1: the waves come. You need an anchor for your souls. Now,
Speaker 1: the question is where do you get it. Well, the
Speaker 1: fact is, when people are in a storm, they typically
Speaker 1: look to everything else except God for their anchor.
Speaker 2: They don't look the hope.
Speaker 1: When people are in deep pain or in deep discouragement
Speaker 1: or deep despair, they often look at the bottom of
Speaker 1: a bottle for their hope, or some medicines for their hope,
Speaker 1: or entertainment or an affair or vacation, or it could
Speaker 1: be good or bad, and they're looking for somebody to
Speaker 1: anchor their lives. If I could just get a boyfriend,
Speaker 1: if I could just get a job, if I could
Speaker 1: just whatever, And they're looking outside of themselves for something
Speaker 1: to anchor them when God says, no, really, what you need.
Speaker 1: What you need is hope. Now, what makes the difference
Speaker 1: between wishful hope and expectant hope and certain hope? When
Speaker 1: you know you can bet your life on it, it's
Speaker 1: going to happen, you can count on it. It's solid,
Speaker 1: it's strong, it's trustworthy, and it's an anchor.
Speaker 2: How do you get that kind of hope? Well, write
Speaker 2: this down.
Speaker 1: Real hope is based on God's word, not my wishes.
Speaker 1: In other words, it's not based on what I sense. Well,
Speaker 1: I think this is gonna happen. I hope this is
Speaker 1: gonna happen. I want this to happen. It's not based
Speaker 1: on what I sense. It's based on what God has said.
Speaker 1: It's not based on my emotion. It's based on what
Speaker 1: God has spoken. It's not based on my imagination.
Speaker 2: It's based on.
Speaker 1: God's obligation to do what he says. You see in
Speaker 1: the Bible, God has said over seven thousand promises to you.
Speaker 1: If I want to count over seven thousand promises. Now,
Speaker 1: certain hope is based on the fact that God cannot lie.
Speaker 1: People often ask me, is there anything God can't do?
Speaker 1: Of course, there are things God can't do. God cannot die,
Speaker 1: deny himself, he wouldn't be God. God cannot do evil,
Speaker 1: he would not be God. There are certain things. Obviously,
Speaker 1: God is self limiting by his own character. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that the Bible says over and over
Speaker 1: and over and over and over is this God cannot lie.
Speaker 1: All truth comes from God. All lies or from the devil.
Speaker 1: If you ever hear the devil talk of you, you
Speaker 1: know it's a lie. He never, never, never speaks the truth.
Speaker 1: And God never, never, never, never lies. God cannot lie.
Speaker 1: And He's given in this book over seven thousand promises.
Speaker 1: When we put our hope in these promises, that's going
Speaker 1: to give a certain hope. When I put my hope
Speaker 1: in my emotion, my talent, my friends, my circumstances, my intelligence,
Speaker 1: or anything else. When I put my hope in anything else,
Speaker 1: it's wishful thinking, or it's expectant hope, but it certainly
Speaker 1: isn't certain. It can't be counted on all the time.
Speaker 1: But God, God cannot lie. So if he said seven
Speaker 1: thousand promises in here, then I base my hope on
Speaker 1: God's word, not my wishes. I base my hope not
Speaker 1: on my feelings, what I feel like doing, but on
Speaker 1: God's promises. And he said, well, what about the promises
Speaker 1: that haven't been realized yet? Well, God has all of
Speaker 1: eternity to fulfill his promises. God doesn't have to fulfill
Speaker 1: his promise just here on earth. Have you ever thought
Speaker 1: about that? When God makes a promise to you, he
Speaker 1: doesn't just have your sixty years on earth to fulfill it.
Speaker 1: There are some promises that God has.
Speaker 2: Made to you. He's got all of eternity to fulfill.
Speaker 1: He's not limited to simply the space and time of
Speaker 1: a ball that spits around space and has a twenty
Speaker 1: four our day. God has all of eternity to fulfill
Speaker 1: his promises in you. Let me give you an example
Speaker 1: of what it means to have a certain faith, and
Speaker 1: by putting your faith not in what you feel, but
Speaker 1: in what God has revealed not in your wishes, but
Speaker 1: in his word. Here's an example. Hebrews chapter six, verse
Speaker 1: thirteen to seventeen talks about Abraham. So God made a
Speaker 1: promise to Abraham, and Abraham waited patiently for it to happen.
Speaker 2: Because God is not a vending machine.
Speaker 1: God doesn't give you promise and fulfill it the next
Speaker 1: day because God is more interested in growing your faith
Speaker 1: than he is even actually meeting your timeline. So there
Speaker 1: will always be a timeline. When God gives your promise,
Speaker 1: there's always a delay because he's going to see if
Speaker 1: you're going to trust him.
Speaker 2: That's what God wants to do, wants to build your faith.
Speaker 1: So God made a promise to Abraham, and Abraham waited
Speaker 1: patiently for it to happen. Actually was ninety nine years
Speaker 1: old when it happened, so he received what God promised. Now,
Speaker 1: people always use the name of someone greater than themselves
Speaker 1: when they make an oath.
Speaker 2: Let me stop and explain that.
Speaker 1: Have you ever noticed that people who don't believe in
Speaker 1: Jesus use his name more than you do?
Speaker 2: What's that all about?
Speaker 1: Okay, when somebody gets mad and they start saying blankety
Speaker 1: blankety blank and Jesus Christ blankety blank and oh God,
Speaker 1: blank blank blank.
Speaker 2: What in the world, Why are they bringing Jesus into this?
Speaker 1: They just hit their thumb, you know, they just had
Speaker 1: a you know, they had an accident.
Speaker 2: Why are they bringing God in Jesus name? It is?
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why, he says.
Speaker 1: Right here, people always use the name of someone greater
Speaker 1: than themselves when they make an oath, okay, and swearing
Speaker 1: is like an oath. They're trying to make themselves more powerful.
Speaker 1: If somebody's mad at you and they come up to
Speaker 1: you and they talk to you in a reasonable tone,
Speaker 1: you're not threatened to frighten by all. But if they
Speaker 1: come out and they start cussing you out and swearing,
Speaker 1: use Jesus name, you get intimidated. Why Because there's power
Speaker 1: in the name of Jesus and the name of God.
Speaker 2: Now, it said.
Speaker 1: People, when they want to make a promise, they say,
Speaker 1: you know, I swe where by the name of Jesus
Speaker 1: or God. And he says, God wanted to prove that
Speaker 1: his promise was true to those who'd get what he promised,
Speaker 1: and he wanted them to understand that his purposes never change.
Speaker 2: His purposes never.
Speaker 1: That's why we call ourselves a purpose driven church because
Speaker 1: we build on unchanging purposes of God. So God made
Speaker 1: an oath. Now there are two things that are unchangeable.
Speaker 1: In other words, they're never going to change. God cannot
Speaker 1: lie when he makes a promise, and he cannot lie
Speaker 1: when he makes an oath.
Speaker 2: These things encourage us.
Speaker 1: They give us strength to hold on, which is what
Speaker 1: an anchor does. They give us strength to hold on
Speaker 1: to the hope we've been given. We have this hope
Speaker 1: as an anchor for our souls.
Speaker 2: It is sure and it is strong.
Speaker 1: Now that whole passage there says what I've just been
Speaker 1: explaining to you for the last ten minutes. Certain hope
Speaker 1: isn't based on feelings. It's based on what God has said.
Speaker 1: It's based on God's promises. It's based on God's statements.
Speaker 1: It's not based on what you think. It's based on
Speaker 1: what God teaches. And he says, the reason why you
Speaker 1: build your life on those things because they're certain, is
Speaker 1: because God can't lie. Other people tell you stuff and
Speaker 1: they'll lie to you, but God cannot lie. So he says,
Speaker 1: this hope is something we can hold on to. We
Speaker 1: can have it as an anchor for our souls. And
Speaker 1: it's strong, and it's true, and it's trustworthy. Now one
Speaker 1: day Jesus gave the key to hopelessness, and he says
Speaker 1: it in Luke chapter eighteen, Verse one. Jesus taught his
Speaker 1: followers that they should read it with me aloud. Always
Speaker 1: pray and never lose hope. And I want you to circle,
Speaker 1: always pray, and I want you to circle never lose hope. Those,
Speaker 1: my friends, are the two alternatives in life. Every single
Speaker 1: moment of your life, you're choosing one of those two alternatives.
Speaker 1: And when stuff bad happens, you'll either panic or you'll pray.
Speaker 1: It's your alternative. If you pray, you don't panic. If
Speaker 1: you panic, you don't pray. You will either worship or
Speaker 1: you will worry. Those are the two alternatives in life.
Speaker 1: Jesus said that we should always pray and never lose hope.
Speaker 1: God wants you to never lose hope. And how do
Speaker 1: you never lose hope by praying? By the way, As
Speaker 1: part of my writing, I surveyed people and I did
Speaker 1: research to discover what are the most common causes of hopelessness,
Speaker 1: What caused people to give up, what caused people to
Speaker 1: give up on their marriage. What costs people to give
Speaker 1: up on their What causes people to give up on
Speaker 1: their life? What causes people to take their life? What
Speaker 1: causes people to have hopelessness. I want to give you
Speaker 1: the results of my research right now. These are the
Speaker 1: top ten causes of hopelessness. They're not on your outline.
Speaker 1: You don't have to write them down. We'll look at
Speaker 1: the antidotes to them in forty days. But look up
Speaker 1: here on the screen. These are top ten and they're
Speaker 1: not in any order, but they're the ten most common.
Speaker 1: When you feel alone or when you feel abandoned, and
Speaker 1: you feel that for a long period of time, that
Speaker 1: causes you to feel hopelessly. And you can be in
Speaker 1: a crowd and feel all alone.
Speaker 2: Isn't that true?
Speaker 1: I mean you have people all around you. You could
Speaker 1: be sitting here right now in one of our campuses
Speaker 1: and feel very lonely. When you feel all alone, when
Speaker 1: you feel abandoned, that causes hopeless Here's another one. When
Speaker 1: life seems out of control. Here's a common phrase. When
Speaker 1: life is out of control. It's never going to change.
Speaker 1: I have no power to change it. It's never going
Speaker 1: to change. And I feel hopeless about this in my relationship,
Speaker 1: in my life, in my habits, that feeling of hopeless
Speaker 1: Number three, let's leave these up there.
Speaker 2: You don't see a purpose.
Speaker 1: People can handle enormous amount of pain as long as
Speaker 1: they realize there's a purpose behind it. What we cannot
Speaker 1: handle is purposeless pain. And when you don't see a
Speaker 1: reason or rhyme or a plan, that causes hopelessness.
Speaker 2: Number four. Grieving a loss.
Speaker 1: When you've had a major loss or a series of
Speaker 1: major losses in your life, that can cause a sense
Speaker 1: of hopelessness. Number five when you don't have what you need.
Speaker 1: You need more money and you can't get it. You
Speaker 1: need more energy and you can't get it. You need
Speaker 1: to be smarter and you're not. You need more talent
Speaker 1: you don't have. You just feel like I'm always behind.
Speaker 1: I'm always a day late and a dollar short. I
Speaker 1: don't have what I need. And many people go through
Speaker 1: life feeling that their entire lives, I don't know what
Speaker 1: I need and they feel hopeless.
Speaker 2: I'm stuck.
Speaker 1: I'm stuck in a dead end job. I'm stuck in poverty.
Speaker 1: I'm stuck in my situation. I can't get out of it,
Speaker 1: and I can't get.
Speaker 2: On with it.
Speaker 1: You don't have what you need. Number six, when you've
Speaker 1: done something wrong. There's a big one. Guilt causes hopelessness.
Speaker 1: Shame causes hopelessness, Regret causes hopelessness. Remorse causes hopelessness. When
Speaker 1: I cannot forgive myself for something that I did and
Speaker 1: it just eats away.
Speaker 2: It's not what you're.
Speaker 1: Eating, it's what's eating you that causes hopelessness over the
Speaker 1: long haul.
Speaker 2: Number seven.
Speaker 1: When you've been deeply wounded by somebody, maybe abuse, physical, sexual,
Speaker 1: or some other way. When you've been really hurt by somebody,
Speaker 1: and that hurt is so bad and that wedge was
Speaker 1: driven so deep and that thorn is so far into
Speaker 1: your flesh you can't think of anything else, and bitterness
Speaker 1: and resentment and holding onto that will cause ultimately hopelessness
Speaker 1: in your life.
Speaker 2: Number eight.
Speaker 1: When you're pulled in the wrong direction. There's a word
Speaker 1: for this. It's called temptation. And when you're constantly being
Speaker 1: pulled in the wrong direction, and you go, I really
Speaker 1: don't want to live this way, but why do I
Speaker 1: keep giving into it? I know this is wrong, I
Speaker 1: know this is not good for me. I know this
Speaker 1: is not healthy. I know this relationship is self destructive.
Speaker 1: I know this habit is taking me in the wrong way.
Speaker 1: Why do I keep doing it? There's an entire chapter
Speaker 1: in the Bible about this, it's Roman seven. But Paul says,
Speaker 1: the things that I know are right and I want
Speaker 1: to do, I end up not doing. And the stuff
Speaker 1: that I don't want to do and I know it's wrong,
Speaker 1: it's bad for me, I end up doing that sense
Speaker 1: of pulled in the wrong direction by temptations.
Speaker 2: Number nine is hounded by fear.
Speaker 1: When you're frightened, when you're scared, when you live in anxiety.
Speaker 1: It leads to hopelessness and people from when people are terrorised,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about physical terrorism around the world, it causes
Speaker 1: a sense of hopelessness. Isis is on the way to
Speaker 1: our village, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Speaker 1: That causes hopelessness. And then number ten is this when
Speaker 1: it looks like defeat, when you feel like I'm not
Speaker 1: on the winning side, I'm on the losing side. We're
Speaker 1: defeat is sure, there's no way the enemy is overwhelming,
Speaker 1: we can't handle the onslaught. We're gone er, this is
Speaker 1: our last stand, but we're all gonna die when it
Speaker 1: looks like now. These are the ten I believe most
Speaker 1: common causes of hopelessness in the world.
Speaker 2: Here's an amazing little truth.
Speaker 1: Over the months and even years I've been thinking about this,
Speaker 1: what I discovered is that the ten greatest causes of
Speaker 1: hopelessness find their antidotes in the ten phrases of the
Speaker 1: Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is a deceptively simple prayer.
Speaker 1: You've got it memorized. It's less than seventy words. A
Speaker 1: lot of people say the Lord's Prayer and don't pray
Speaker 1: the Lord's prayer. You may have never prayed it. You've
Speaker 1: said it, you say it, but you.
Speaker 2: Don't pray it. And to understand the.
Speaker 1: Depth of each of the phrases of the Lord's Prayer
Speaker 1: is to see the antide to every one of the
Speaker 1: ten biggest causes of hopelessness on our planet. Ten reasons
Speaker 1: for hope that we get from the phrases of the
Speaker 1: Lord's Prayer. Number one, When I'm feeling all alone, I
Speaker 1: remember Number one. My loving Father will never abandon me.
Speaker 1: My loving Father will never abandon me, Our Father in heaven.
Speaker 1: You are not an orphan. Jesus broke the mold. You
Speaker 1: don't realize how radical it was when Jesus used the
Speaker 1: phrase our Father. Nobody had ever talked to God that way.
Speaker 1: We do it all the time today, but it's because
Speaker 1: of this prayer. It was so radical when he said,
Speaker 1: you have a father who is caring and comforting, and
Speaker 1: you know, consistent, and he's close and all of those things.
Speaker 1: My father will never abandon me. That gives me hope.
Speaker 1: Number Two, when life seems out of control, I need
Speaker 1: to remember and I'm feeling powers, that God's power is
Speaker 1: greater than any price problem. God's power is greater than
Speaker 1: any problem. I don't have time to go into the
Speaker 1: meaning of Hallowed be your Name, but the Bible teaches
Speaker 1: that there is power in the name of God and
Speaker 1: power in the name of Jesus, and when we hollow
Speaker 1: his name, it brings power in our life. Jesus even
Speaker 1: himself prayed, keep them safe by the power of your name.
Speaker 1: So we'll go into that later. God's power is greater
Speaker 1: than any other problem, and it is wrapped up in
Speaker 1: the name of God. Number Three. When I'm confused and
Speaker 1: i don't see any purpose to what's going on in
Speaker 1: my life, I need to remember. Number three, God fits
Speaker 1: everything into his plan. That is a reason for hope,
Speaker 1: that even my mistakes, even my sins, he fits it
Speaker 1: into his plan. And his plan is called the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of God. And we are to seek the Kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: We are to live for the Kingdom of God. We're
Speaker 1: to live for God's plan and purpose. It's this overarching plan.
Speaker 1: And we know the Bible says that in all things
Speaker 1: God works for the good of those who love him
Speaker 1: according to this purpose. And he takes even the bad
Speaker 1: things in our lives and he fits it into his
Speaker 1: kingdom plan.
Speaker 2: That's a reason for hope. Number Four.
Speaker 1: When I'm grieving, when I've had a major loss in
Speaker 1: my life, I need to remember that God has a
Speaker 1: greater purpose for my life, and I surrender to that
Speaker 1: purpose even when I don't understand the losses in my life.
Speaker 1: I say, Thy will be done on earth as it
Speaker 1: is in heaven. And why do we pray that, because
Speaker 1: God's will is not always done on earth. It's done
Speaker 1: perfectly in heaven, but it's not done perfectly on earth.
Speaker 1: The fact it's done seldom on earth. That's why if
Speaker 1: God's will was always done, you wouldn't have to pray
Speaker 1: for it. Share that God's will was always done, you
Speaker 1: wouldn't have to pray for it. Not everything that happens
Speaker 1: is God's will. That's why we are to pray thy
Speaker 1: will be done for God's greater purpose in our lives.
Speaker 1: Number five. When I'm worried about not having enough, one
Speaker 1: of the ten causes of hopelessness, I need to remember
Speaker 1: that God has promised to meet all my needs. And
Speaker 1: he says, I want you to come to me for
Speaker 1: your needs, and I want you to pray give us
Speaker 1: this day our daily bread.
Speaker 2: And notice he doesn't say give me this day.
Speaker 1: My monthly bread, are my weekly bread, are my annual bread.
Speaker 1: God wants you to depend on him day by day,
Speaker 1: and he says, God has promised to meet all your
Speaker 1: needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus, and
Speaker 1: the Bible says, since God loved us enough to send Jesus,
Speaker 1: won't he love us enough to take care of all
Speaker 1: of our other needs. The answer is obvious yes. So
Speaker 1: God's promised to meet all my needs and we can
Speaker 1: come to him for our daily bread. Means everything that
Speaker 1: I need in life, physical, emotional, et cetera. Number six.
Speaker 1: When I feel guilty and I feel full of remorse
Speaker 1: or regret, I remember that Jesus paid, he died to
Speaker 1: pay for all I've done wrong. And I'm forgiven, and
Speaker 1: I am forgiven, and we are to forget. We are
Speaker 1: to pray forgive us our sins. And the Bible tells
Speaker 1: us this. There is no condemnation for those who are
Speaker 1: in Christ Jesus.
Speaker 2: That's a reason for hope. There is no condemnation.
Speaker 1: We are forgiven, even the stuff we haven't even done yet.
Speaker 1: Jesus Christ paid for on the cross. No condemnation. That's
Speaker 1: a reason for hope. And you can stop hanging yourself
Speaker 1: on the cross. Number seven. When I've been hurt, when
Speaker 1: people have hurt me deeply, when I've been wounded, when
Speaker 1: I've been judged, when I've been misunderstood, when I've been
Speaker 1: wronged unfairly, I need to remember that God will settle
Speaker 1: the score someday. That's a reason for hope. People don't
Speaker 1: just get away with stuff. God says, one day, I'm
Speaker 1: going to settle the story. He says, Your job is
Speaker 1: to forgive. My job is to judge. It's not my
Speaker 1: judge job to judge other people. It's God's job because
Speaker 1: he can only judge fairly. I'm going to show this
Speaker 1: one verse Romans twelve nineteen. Can we put that on
Speaker 1: the outlet on the screen. Don't insist on getting even
Speaker 1: that's not for you to do.
Speaker 2: I'll do the judging, says God. I'll take care of it.
Speaker 2: He weird to do the forgiving. God's to do the judging.
Speaker 2: And we need to know and.
Speaker 1: We can count on the fact that God has promised
Speaker 1: that He's going to settle the score someday.
Speaker 2: Number eight.
Speaker 1: When I feel powerless to break through those temptations that
Speaker 1: keep messing me up, when I feel like I cannot
Speaker 1: actually get free from the habits and hurts and the
Speaker 1: hang ups. Something bad's always causing my downfall, I need
Speaker 1: to remember this number eight. God has promised to help me.
Speaker 1: God has promised to help me, and he says that
Speaker 1: you ask for help. He says, pray lead us not
Speaker 1: into temptation. Let me show you this verse two First
Speaker 1: Corinthians ten thirteen. The Bible says, remember that the temptations
Speaker 1: have come into your life are no different from what
Speaker 1: others experience. And God is faithful.
Speaker 2: He will keep.
Speaker 1: The temptation from becoming so strong that you can't stand
Speaker 1: up against it. And when you're attempted, he will show
Speaker 1: you a way out so that you will not give
Speaker 1: in to it.
Speaker 2: That gives me a reason for hope that maybe, just maybe.
Speaker 1: I can break through the things that are messing up
Speaker 1: my life and my witness.
Speaker 2: Number nine.
Speaker 1: When I feel threatened, when I feel anxious, when I
Speaker 1: feel afraid, when I feel frightened or scared by forces
Speaker 1: that are coming against me. Number nine, I need to
Speaker 1: remember that Jesus in me is greater than any other power.
Speaker 1: The Bible says, greater is He that is in you
Speaker 1: than is heath in the world, and we are to
Speaker 1: pray deliver us from evil.
Speaker 2: And when you.
Speaker 1: Understand the full implication of that phrase, you're going to
Speaker 1: be a lot more confident in life, the fact that
Speaker 1: greater is He who is in you than he that
Speaker 1: is in the world. And most Christians do not practice
Speaker 1: that on.
Speaker 2: A daily basis.
Speaker 1: And finally, number ten, we said that the tenth pause
Speaker 1: of hopelessness is a feeling of defeat.
Speaker 2: We're on the wrong side. You're hear it all the time.
Speaker 2: You're on the wrong side of history.
Speaker 1: Christianity has never been on the right side of history.
Speaker 1: It started when the Romans were nailing us to the cross.
Speaker 1: It's never been on the right side of history. But
Speaker 1: there are two point three billion of us. Sorry, And
Speaker 1: so when it looks like defeat and it looks like
Speaker 1: evil is winning, I need to remember this number ten.
Speaker 1: This is not the end of the story. This is
Speaker 1: not the end of the story. People can vote this
Speaker 1: way and that way, and do this thing and that thing,
Speaker 1: and cultures can rise and crumble, but it is not
Speaker 1: the end of the story.
Speaker 2: History is his story.
Speaker 1: For yours is the kingdom, and yours is the power,
Speaker 1: and yours is the glory forever. And one day He's
Speaker 1: gonna wipe away every tear and every pain, and there
Speaker 1: will be no more death, and no more sorrow, and
Speaker 1: no more crying, and no more pain.
Speaker 2: This is not the end of the story.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to just close by talking to some
Speaker 1: of you who may be in the despair right now.
Speaker 2: And some of you have thought this is never going
Speaker 2: to change in my life, and some.
Speaker 1: Of you have thought maybe maybe the world would be
Speaker 1: at a better place without me, and maybe you've even
Speaker 1: thought about taking your life. Don't don't you have no
Speaker 1: idea of the implications of that foolish decision. So let
Speaker 1: me just say a few things too. Those of you,
Speaker 1: and it's not everybody, but those of you who are
Speaker 1: in the pit of despair right now. Suicidal thoughts are
Speaker 1: a symptom, not a solution. It's not the solution to
Speaker 1: your despair. It's not the solution to your hopelessness. Suicidal
Speaker 1: thoughts are never rational, that don't make sense.
Speaker 2: You got to not listen to them.
Speaker 1: And what you have to do when you feel hopeless,
Speaker 1: and whether you're suicide or not, everybody needs this one.
Speaker 1: When you feel hopeless, you must challenge your thoughts. You
Speaker 1: must challenge your thoughts. Let me give you some ways,
Speaker 1: just as I close here, some ways to challenge your
Speaker 1: thoughts when you feel hopeless. First, you need to tell
Speaker 1: yourself this, just because I think something doesn't make it true.
Speaker 1: You think a lot of things about yourself and about
Speaker 1: others that simply aren't true. Just because you think it
Speaker 1: doesn't make it true. Let me tell you something else.
Speaker 1: Just because you think your thoughts tell you to do
Speaker 1: something doesn't mean you should do it. Your mind tells
Speaker 1: you a lot of things you should never, never, never do.
Speaker 1: You need to challenge your thoughts, and you need to
Speaker 1: tell yourself I don't really want to die. I just
Speaker 1: want the pain to end. And you need to sell yourself.
Speaker 1: I believe that there's a better solution to ending my pain,
Speaker 1: even though I can't see it right now.
Speaker 2: You have to tell.
Speaker 1: Yourself that, and you have to say to yourself, this
Speaker 1: will pass. This is my depression talking to me. It's
Speaker 1: not the truth. This is my depression talking to me.
Speaker 1: I will get through this. This too will pass. When
Speaker 1: you go through deep waters in great trouble, I will
Speaker 1: be with you. When you go through rivers of difficult
Speaker 1: you will not drown. This is a promise. When you
Speaker 1: walk through the fires of oppression, you will not be
Speaker 1: burned up. The flames will not consume you. For I
Speaker 1: am the Lord, your God. Let's bow our heads. Father,
Speaker 1: I love these people in all of our campuses. Thank
Speaker 1: you for our family called saddleback. And I know that
Speaker 1: in a family our size, that there are many many
Speaker 1: people who right now feel hopeless about a job, a relationship,
Speaker 1: their future, their finances. Lord, there's some who feel alone
Speaker 1: and abandoned. Help them to remember that you are their
Speaker 1: loving Father who will never abandon them. And there are
Speaker 1: some who feel life's out of control. Help them to
Speaker 1: feel and realize that your power is greater than any
Speaker 1: problem they're facing. And there's some who feel like it
Speaker 1: just doesn't and there is no purpose to their life.
Speaker 1: Help them to realize that you have a plan and
Speaker 1: that you fit everything into the plan, even the tough stuff,
Speaker 1: and use it for good.
Speaker 2: Lord.
Speaker 1: There are those who are grieving a loss right now.
Speaker 1: Thank you that you have a greater purpose for our life,
Speaker 1: and that when we surrender to you and say I
Speaker 1: will be done on earth as it is in Heaven,
Speaker 1: we find peace and comfort.
Speaker 2: Lord.
Speaker 1: There's so many people here who don't have what they
Speaker 1: need physically, emotionally, sexually, spiritually, financially. Thank you that you've
Speaker 1: promised to meet all of our needs if we will
Speaker 1: turn to you.
Speaker 2: Lord.
Speaker 1: There are those who are carrying deep regret, deep remorse,
Speaker 1: deep guilt for something they've done wrong. Thank you, Jesus
Speaker 1: that you died for those sins. You died for them,
Speaker 1: that those sins have been paid for, we don't have
Speaker 1: to pay for them. Thank You that we're forgiven completely
Speaker 1: freely and instantly. Maybe learn to forgive ourselves and learn
Speaker 1: to forgive others.
Speaker 2: And Father, when people.
Speaker 1: Wound us and they hurt us, help us to not
Speaker 1: seek revenged. And you said vengeance is mine, I will repay.
Speaker 1: Help us to forgive and lead the judgment to you,
Speaker 1: because you are the only righteous judge.
Speaker 2: We are not.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Lord that you're going to settle the score
Speaker 1: one day. And when we're pulled in the wrong direction,
Speaker 1: help us to claim the promises that you will never
Speaker 1: allow us to be tempted more than we're able.
Speaker 2: And when we're hounded.
Speaker 1: By fear, deliver us from evil. Help us to remember
Speaker 1: that Jesus, you and us are greater than any other
Speaker 1: power that's in the world. And when we live in
Speaker 1: a culture where things seem to be going the wrong way,
Speaker 1: and when it looks like defeat, help us remember that
Speaker 1: this is not the end for yours as the kingdom
Speaker 1: and the power and the glory forever. I pray that
Speaker 1: this fall each of us will find one person to
Speaker 1: bring to church to share the good news with. It's
Speaker 1: just too good to keep it a secret. And I
Speaker 1: pray that we will be agents of hope in a
Speaker 1: world that is increasingly hopeless. I Pray this blessing in
Speaker 1: the name of the Father and the Son and the
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2: Amen.