Hope

Hope

Good Morning Friends,

One of my friends suggested that I do a series on a topic and so I asked him what topic would be good to start off such an endeavor. After a pause he responded with what might well be the riskiest of the virtues…the one word… Hope.

Scripture: 16So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. ¹⁷For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, ¹⁸because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (NRSV)

He led them out of Egypt and performed wonders and signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea and for forty years in the wilderness.

Acts 7:36 (NIV)

Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon,

Exodus 6:23 (NRSV)

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:2-5 (NIV).

Message: So here I am this morning trying to explain the true meaning of hope. And the initiation of hope in us and I am thinking of Jesus of course but also a character in the Bible you may not know. His name is Nahshon. He was a prominent leader of the ancient Israelites during the Exodus, a brother-in-law of Arron and according to the Jewish Midrash (stories) he initiated the parting of the Red Sea by walking head-deep up to his nose into the water until Moses too had enough faith to act. His name means initiator. So this morning as I am contemplating this character depicted in the Sistine Chapel, and as I am walking head deep in the topic of hope, I am thinking this thing hope is not just blind optimism but more of a constant expectation, a gift from the Holy Spirit, a miracle of renewal that never lets us down. Well ok I am pretty sure God might be done with the hope provided by parting of the Red Sea kind of miracles. So what we have here is a hope in the miracle of God’s daily presence in our lives continually initiating the hope of Christ…the revelation of Christ and that opens up and initiates all sorts of possibilities we may never have thought possible…even the faith of writing a devotional series.

Pray that we discover the best way to have hope. Pray that we have a sense that Christ is for us. Pray that we have a sense that Jesus is with us. Pray that we understand what it means for Christ to be in us. Pray that we trust Him for His grace. Pray that we take courage in His love and the mystery of His footsteps walking into and onto the water. Pray that we hope in the conviction that God has created all people with a purpose to initiate God’s hope for our future. Pray that we recognize a humble hope of the possibility that Jesus is with us initiating in us an expectation for revelation.

Blessings,

John Lawson