Sermon Reources available here...

                      

Sermon Reources available here...

                      

step into the LIGHT: restoring hope Last week we began a new series called “Getting Healthy” and we’re looking at the eight Beatitudes of Jesus, which are eight steps to getting healthy. We talked last week about how we all have unhealthy areas in our lives - habits, hurts and hang ups that mess us up. We talked about how the cause of hurt in your life is when you try to play God, denying your humanity, trying to control everything. When you try to control everything it causes frustration, it causes fatigue, it causes failure.

The first step to recovery is to “Realize I’m not God.” I admit that I’m powerless to control my tendency to do things that I know that are unhealthy. I just do them anyway. And my life tends to be unmanageable.

The second step is: EARNESTLY believe that God exists; that I matter to Him, and that He has the power to help me recover.

When you take the first step, it means you will be honest about your pain, your hang-ups, your hurts, and honest about the fact that you don’t have it all together. All of us have broken areas in our lives that are painful. In fact, it can be downright devastating because if you’ve carried a hurt for a long time you often begin to get your identity from that hurt. We live in a society of victims. As you begin to take first steps you start grieving over your past – “I wish that hadn’t happened... I wish I hadn’t made those dumb decisions... I wish I hadn’t had that bad response...” And you start to grieve over wasted time, wasted energy wasted guilt and shame and resentment. You start to grieve so God takes us to step two, which is the Hope Step. And God helps us.

In Matthew 5:4, the second beatitude, “God blesses those people who grieve. They will find comfort.” What God is saying to you here is when you do the painful work – and it is painful – of owning up to your problems and owning up to the issues that aren’t correct in your life – physical, emotional, spiritual and every other way. When you actually face your hang-ups, your hurts, your bad habits and you face that pain, God says, “I will be right there to give you hope.”

You cannot get healthy without hope.
You can go forty days without food.
You can go about eight days without water.
You may be able to go about three minutes without air at the maximum.
But you can’t go one second without hope.

You must have hope in order to get healthy again. You’d never go on a diet if you didn’t hope it would make you look better, feel better – hope that it would work. We all need hope. You cannot live without hope. Proverbs 18:14 says, “No one can live with a broken spirit.”

What is hope? Hope is the light at the end of the tunnel. Hope is the energy that keeps you going as we take these eight steps to getting healthy.

The issue then becomes how do you have hope or where do you get hope when change seems hopeless?

The Bible tells us there are five things that you need to remember that will give you hope in a hopeless situation. I would encourage you to hide these five things in your heart and learn to practice them as you work through the difficulties in your life.

These five things build on each other. The first one is pretty obvious. As we get further and further it becomes a little more powerful in your life. What are they?

If I want to have hope to change:

1. I must remember God is with me.

I remember God is with me because the first reason we often feel hopeless is we forget about God. We think we’re on our own. We think, if it’s to be it’s up to me. We think, “I have to solve all my problems myself. God isn’t there.” And we forget God.

The Bible says this in Job 8, “Those who forget God have no hope.” If there were no God in this world we’d have a lot of reasons to be discouraged. We’d have a lot of reasons to feel helpless and hopeless. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn the Nobel Prize winner wrote an article a while back in National Review magazine. He said if you want to summarize all the problems of the twentieth century, all the bad things that happened in the last one hundred years, you could sum it up on one phrase. It was the title of his article – “Men Have Forgotten God.” When we forget God we tend to act like animals. When we forget God we tend to be selfish. When we forget God we tend to lose hope.

A definition of an atheist is someone who is living as if there is no God. If that’s the definition, I know a lot of Christians who are atheists. Because even though we believe in God, we often act when it comes to our problems that God doesn’t exist.

In 1980, Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback church in Cal., and author of the best selling book, Purpose Driven Life, had a major health issue. He had a health crisis and lost all his strength. He went through a year of depression for almost a year. He was very weak and didn’t have much energy at all. He was filled with doubt and filled with anxiety about the future of the church. He was plagued by questions like, “What if I don’t get my strength back? What if I don’t regain my health? What if I don’t have the energy to lead this church? What will happen to this church? Will it crumble? Will it fall apart? Will it blow away? What’s going to happen?” Warren was filled with a lot of doubt and a lot of despair.

In his own words, “God said to me (not literally but in my mind) “Rick, whose church is this?” I said, “It’s Your church, God.” “Then it’s My responsibility, not yours so don’t worry about it.”

I took my Bible and I began to read through the book of Psalms and I underlined all the verses that dealt with either despair or depression. In that study I found this verse. “Lord, when doubts fill my mind and when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope and cheer.”

Some of you are feeling hopeless about changing your life right now. You need to memorize this verse. You need to pray it to God.

2. I remember that God cares about me.

He loves me. I matter to Him. The Bible is very, very clear about this. Lamentations 3 “I have hope when I think of this: the Lord’s love never ends, His mercies never stop. They are new every morning.” Circle the phrase “never ends”.

How is that possible? How is it possible for God's love for you to never end? Obviously human love ends. We see it all around us. People fall out of love all the time. Why? Because human love is conditional and God's love is unconditional and therefore it never ends. There’s a verse in the Bible where God says “I have loved you with an everlasting love.”

Here’s my question to you. Have you ever let God love you? You know about God's love but many Christians have never felt the unconditional love of God.

Henri Nouwen wrote a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son. In that he talks about Rembrandt’s famous picture of the prodigal son. You know that story, it’s in the Bible. The son went to his dad one day and said, “Dad I want my half of the inheritance,” and he went off and blew it on wine, women and song. A few years later he comes back home. He’s broke, he’s busted, he’s destitute. He says, “I blew it, dad. And his father, instead of rejecting him or giving him a lecture welcomes him home with a warm, loving, forgiving embrace. Rembrandt painted a painting of the loving father welcoming his son home. That’s the center of the picture. But over to the side there are some bystanders who are watching, who are looking on as observers.

Nouwen says this: “For years I instructed students on the different aspects of the spiritual life. But one day I realized that I had never, ever really dared to step into the center of the picture, kneel down and let myself be held by a forgiving God.” Have you ever done that? Have you ever let yourself be held by a forgiving God? “I needed to move from a bystander to a participant, from a teacher about love to being loved as the beloved. But I didn’t have an inkling of how difficult that journey would be and how much longer it would take to complete.”

Why is that? Why does it take so long to really understand the unconditional love of God?

Psalm 103 “He is like a Father to us, tender and sympathetic. For He knows what we’re made of – dust.” We’re just particles put together. And God says I want to be a Father to you, tender and sympathetic.

God wants to be the Father that you may have never had. Probably a different kind of Father than the one you had. He is a tender, sympathetic and understanding Father. Many people, if not most people have never really felt that they matter to God. They’ve never really felt that God loved them unconditionally.

That’s what Romans 5:8 says “God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us.” You want to know how much you matter? Look at the cross. That’s how much you matter. Jesus Christ came to earth to die for you. That’s the reason for hope. Not only is God with me but He cares about me.

Not only is He with you and cares about you I need to remember that...

3. He knows my situation.

God knows everything. He knows your habits, He knows your hang-ups, He knows your hurts. Psalm 56:6 says, “You know how troubled I am. You have kept a record of my tears.” God has kept a record of every tear that has fallen down your cheeks. That’s what I call getting up close and personal.

You have never shed a tear that God missed. Nothing is beyond His love. Nothing is beyond His compassionate gaze. He’s with you, He loves you and He sees everything you have gone through, are going through, and knows what you’re going to go through. He knows you up close and personal. You’ve all heard people say, “Nobody knows what I’m going through.” God does.

In fact, the Bible says when you are in so much pain and you are so confused about something in your life that you can’t even put it into words, you can’t even pray about it, because you can’t verbalize what you feel, the Bible says God prays for you. He talks to Himself about your pain. In Romans 8 it says, “When we don’t know what to pray, when we’re in pain and don’t know which way to turn, the Holy Spirit prays for us.” God talks to Himself about your pain. That’s how much you matter even when you don’t know how to pray. He’s praying for you to Himself. That’s how much you matter to God.

Psalm 31:7 says “You have seen the crisis in my soul.” Some of you are in a crisis right now. God sees it. He knows about it. He cares about it. And there is hope for change if you will trust Him.

If you feel you’re in a hopeless situation you just need to remember these things: God is with me, God cares about me, God sees what I’m going through and...

4. I need to remember He has power I don’t have.

Luke 18 says “What is impossible for men is possible with God.” The sun radiates more power in one second than has been used by all of mankind throughout history. In one second. The sun has enough power to burn constantly for the next thirty billion years. And that sun is just one of gazillions of them that God created. Suffice it to say that God has more power than you can comprehend. You just need to realize He’s got enough for your problems.

Because God's power is unlimited two things are true:

      1. He never gets tired, He never gets fatigued or runs out of energy.

      2. He never leaves you alone.

He has more power than you can possibly imagine. And what’s impossible for men is possible with God.

Romans 4:18 I love this in The Message paraphrase “When everything was hopeless Abraham believed anyway deciding to live not on the basis of what he couldn’t do but on what God said He would do.” The fact is there are many things in your life you can’t control. In fact most of the things in your life you can’t control. So that does mean that in those situations you are helpless but you are not hopeless. That’s Step Two. Step One says I am helpless to change some things in my life. Step Two says but I have hope. I am not hopeless. Because God has power that I don’t have.

Philippians 2 says this, “For God is at work within you giving you the will and the power to achieve His purpose.” Circle the word “power”. He gives you the will and the power.

In AA they talk about recognizing the higher power. The good news is He has a name and His name is Jesus Christ. He’s not just a power, He’s a person. And He wants a relationship with you. When you get to know Him there is a new sense of power. It’s a moment by moment connection to God. The only way you’re going to have power from God is not just by being a Christian. It’s being connected on a moment by moment basis.

Let me give you a principle of the universe. I’ve found this works with toasters, it works with vacuum cleaners, it works with eggbeaters, it works with coffee makers. Here’s the universal principle: Things work better when they’re plugged in. And so do you. The only way you’re going to get God's power is to be connected moment by moment.

The truth is a lot of the hopes you’ve had in your life were false hopes. You had hopes that things would change and they didn’t because your hope was misplaced.

You have to get on with the future. In your car you have a windshield and you have a rear view mirror. Which of those is bigger? The windshield. Which of them do you spend more time looking at? The windshield hopefully. The rear view mirror is a good thing to have because it gives you perspective. It’s nice to know where you’ve come from. But you don’t keep focused on the past. In fact, imagine driving a car that had a bigger rearview mirror than a windshield. You would wreck in no time.

Some of you are wondering why you’re under so much stress. You are stuck in the rear view mirror position. You can’t get on with the present because you’re stuck in the past. Habits, hurts and hang-ups. This process that we’re looking at these eight weeks are the steps to getting out of that mode. You’ve got to get on with your life, you’ve got to let it go, you’ve got to make some changes, you’ve got to let God work in your heart and do some healing so you can look in the future.

Some of you, you think about the past every day of your life. It comes up even right now as I speak about it. That hurt, that thing that hurt you. It’s just right under the surface all the time. God wants to deal with that. In fact, let me tell you what spiritual growth is. Spiritual growth is the process of shrinking the rear view mirror and expanding the windshield in your life so you can see what God wants to do with you.

Here’s the fifth thing you need to remember when you feel hopeless. Not only does God know me, He’s with me, He cares about me, He knows my situation, He has power I don’t have but remember...

5. He’s promised to help.

He has promised to help me if I'll turn to Him. Psalm 119:81 “I expect Your help for You have promised it.” Over and over and over – over 6000 promises God says I want to help you. He’s promised it and the Bible says this, “God cannot lie when He makes a promise. He cannot lie when He makes an oath. These things encourage us. They give us strength to hold onto the hope we have been given.”

If you want to have real hope in a hopeless situation, something you thought is never going to change, you need to remember these: God is with me, He cares about me, He knows the situation, He has the power to change it and He will help me.

These five truths are summarized in the second step to getting healthy again: Earnestly believe that God exists, that I matter to Him and that He has the power to help me recover, to get well again.

What happens when I believe that? When I ask Christ to come in and not just live in my heart but to help me be connected moment by moment, day by day. What happens? “The Spirit that God gives us...” turns us into raving lunatics and makes us fanatical nut cases. No. The Spirit that God gives us, when God's Spirit is inside of you what happens? It says “He fills us with power, with love and with a sound mind [or self control].” The very three things you need in order to get healthy again.

First you need power. Because you can’t change on your own. If you could have, you would have but you can’t so you won’t. You need God's power, power beyond yourself.

Second, you need love. What is love? Love is the ability to establish deep, meaningful, satisfying, authentic relationships. Rather than shallow, superficial, hurtful, painful, selfish relationships. Oh boy do you need love in your life!

Then you need self-control. What is that? Just more willpower? No. It’s God's power in your life giving you the ability to say no. To say no to the things you know are unhealthy for you.

You can have all three of those things if you’ll just stay connected to the source.

Prayer:

In Step One we admit that we are powerless to change unhealthy things in our lives. In Step Two we recognize that God has all the power we need to make those changes.

Father, I’m sure that there are people here today who feel pretty beat up by their circumstances. They’re feeling hopeless. There may be some who are here in so much despair that maybe they’ve even considered taking their life to end the pain. Thank You so much for bringing these people here today so they could have a new hope. Jesus, I know that You love them very much and I pray that in this moment they will turn it all over to You to get connected, to get reconnected so Your power can flow through them and they can begin a new life of living hope.

Now you pray. Say in your mind, “Dear God, You know exactly how I’ve been feeling this week. You’ve seen the confusion and sadness in my soul. Today I want to turn it all over to You again. Help me to feel and experience Your unconditional love. Even in the ugly areas of my life thank You that I matter to You. Help me to remember than You know all about my situation and that You have the power to change me and everything else. Thank You for Your promises to help. Today I want to take step two in getting healthy again. Jesus Christ, I believe You exist. I believe that You love me. That I matter to You. And that You have the power to get healthy again. Help me to trust You and to stay connected to You on a day by day, moment by moment basis. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”

This sermon was adapted from the Saddleback Sermon Series: Getting Healthy Again.

2004/10/10