Hope in Your Future
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Hope in Your Future
As I come forward at end of worship
SLIDE 1 “WELCOME WE ARE GLAD YOU’RE HERE”
Encouraging words from worship
I pray you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving
Looking forward to this Wednesday and Thursday evenings
Many of these events we do together build us up....Amen
This time of the year builds us up and builds hope within us
Just as the time we shared lighting the advent candle
What a grand statement to make is there is “Hope in Our Future”
SLIDE 2
The tremendous advantage we all have as believers is because of the birth of Christ
It would be the hope for all who believed in His coming before His birth
Hope always involves our family members as we seem to always have them in our hearts when having hope for our future
We all have read or heard this famous passage from Jeremiah 29:11..
SLIDE 3
11 ‘For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.
This is a very comforting passage if you came here today from maybe a challenging last few weeks
First of all this is God making this statement to Israel
Here in just the previous verses God says do not believe what the false prophets are telling you....God says, “for they prophesy falsely to you in My name, I have not sent them, declares the Lord”
Many of us would not feel the importance or impact of this passage without knowing the whole background or context for this verse.........elaborate
Its real thing many times when challenges get real....amen?
Sometimes you get lost in the fog of today’s life and challenges
You may start reminding yourself.....what did I do that for? why did this had to happen? How can we come out of this after what we just found out about this situation?
But if we could just find this thought in the fog
Look at the passage what it says again
For I know the plans I have for you
You know what happens next when we find this hope in the fog life has sometimes? It triggers our heart for a whole new focus and this is what it is?
SLIDE 4
12 ‘Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.
13 ‘You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.
This is not a promise our One True God who knows the future but owns the future…amen
He gives us 3 things here.....Call upon Me, pray to Me and seek Me!
See we have that go to......its deep down in here.....no one ....no other power..... no matter what the situation
You have hope because God says, don’t believe what everyone else is saying, don’t believe those other voices you are hearing.....God says, “I know the plans I have for you”
See all hope is based on the redemptive works of God
Look at what the Lexham Bible shows us about HOPE
SLIDE 5
HOPE The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.
See the philosophies of the world are expressed through nature, good or bad experiences
So the future the world sees is just a projection of one’s own subjective possibilities
The Lexham Dictionary goes on to finish with this statement
SLIDE 6
Biblical hope avoids this subjectivity by being founded on something that provides a sufficient basis for confidence in its fulfillment: God and His redemptive acts as they culminate in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
So what have we discovered today?....That all hope that we cling to, all hope we stand on is built on what?
Every redemptive act God performed throughout all times for everyone who believed Him
......but it doesn’t stop there for us and it didn’t stop there for them and that’s why we gather around this Hope today
Think about some of those whose hope was in God.....some of the things they experienced or went through.
Do you just as we stand here today around One hope.....Jesus Christ
SLIDE 7 “THERE IS A HOPE IN YOUR FUTURE”
Even way back then the hope of the coming of Jesus would be what activated all faith.... all trust.... and belief in God and thus God performing those acts of redemptive work in their lives and so He does in our lives today
Believing in the coming Messiah activated everything around their lives for a future and a hope.........had nothing to do with what the world thinks......bad or good experiences or of nature......all our future and hope is based in Christ Jesus
past ......present ....or future God is the same yesterday, today and forever amen
One book of the Bible that talks a whole lot about hope is the book of Romans
Now Paul is talking here about the faith Abraham had.......now lets think about His faith and hope Abraham had
We might think about all this faith and hope ....thus equaling redemptive work by God mainly benefits Israel and the line of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and their descendants.....and again their hope
First think about all the other nations, how all this happened
Now think about God’s chosen nation Israel.......what happened to them? ......Now where is the hope for anyone?
Jesus........first the hope of Israel, then the hope of the nations
Think about this situation at this time of all darkness, spiritual bankruptcy of the world, seems no hope......Then Jesus is born
You really can feel this in real time with Simeon, the man who gets to dedicate Jesus as a baby .....check this out....this is after the shepherds had been glorifying God at the manger
SLIDE 8
21 And when eight days had passed, before His circumcision, His name was then called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb.
22 And when the days for their purification according to the law of Moses were completed, they brought Him up to Jerusalem to present Him to the Lord
23 (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”),
Now why are these verses important here?
Lets look on now
SLIDE 9
25 And there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him.
26 And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ.
Now this is very powerful....you have to get this.....what had Simeon been looking for all his life
What that called? think about the situation of Israel and the world also.....Simeon had HOPE
Consolation is comfort....its refreshment…encouragement.....Simeon was holding HOPE
And it wasn’t just for Israel…it would be for all the other nations as well......check this out
SLIDE 10
28 then he took Him into his arms, and blessed God, and said,
29 “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace,
According to Your word;
30 For my eyes have seen Your salvation,
31 Which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
32 A Light of revelation to the Gentiles,
And the glory of Your people Israel.”
Remember what I told you in the book of Romans about saying a lot about hope.
SLIDE 11
16 For this reason it is by faith, in order that it may be in accordance with grace, so that the promise will be guaranteed to all the descendants, not only to those who are of the Law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all,
17 (as it is written, “A father of many nations have I made you”) in the presence of Him whom he believed, even God, who gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist.
SLIDE 12
18 In hope against hope he believed, so that he might become a father of many nations according to that which had been spoken, “So shall your descendants be.”
LET’S PRAY
SLIDE 13 “THERE IS HOPE IN YOUR FUTURE”
WORSHIP / CLOSE BY MARK