Trust

Emily Dickinson. Share these words. Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings a tune without the words and never stops at all ever. Had one of those songs in your head that you just keep humming or singing, I was doing that if it back when I was in Youth Ministry in the, I said, I came out done to the office where the youth secretary wasn't, is it out of my head? And he said, I know, I know.

It helps always inside of us and sometimes we were aware of it, sometimes we're not, sometimes it is surges up and down. If you look in in the Dictionary for definition of hope you'll find, you know, hope to win the lottery. It's basically what is a description that there is but many of the dictionaries have a of a distinction for archaic or the old version of hoe and that word is typically Trust. That's really what we're talking about and biblical hope it's not. I hope that I'll win the lottery. It's that I trust that God is going to deliver on his promises. And so the modern issue of Hope and the biblical issue of Hope really have a very, very different kind of manifestation. And it's important for us to keep in mind that biblical hope is much more faith and trust and confidence oriented that is the kind of hope that people just talk about. Well, I hope it's a pretty day or I hope it's nice weather or I hope this. I hope that it and we're really not talking about trust and confidence. They are so biblically. We're looking at something very different but beyond that I believe the hope is what fuels our Christian energy. Hope is what we are literally burning. It's our fuel and when we run out whole, we've run out of fuel, we run out of gas for the tank. We've run out of wood for the stove. We are not and sometimes we feel like we're depleted and part of that may very well be the reality that we aren't as strongly hopeful trusting confident as we need enough to be. Is it expression? People say, well one day, you'll laugh at this and, you know, sometimes that's true. But when it's happening, it's real hard to believe that that's going to be the case. You're going to laugh at this.

I like to begin in Matthew chapter 9. This is the story of the woman who has an issue of blood there. Very long accounts in the Mark chapter 5 and Luke chapter 8, this is a brief one and because I think most people are familiar with the story. I'm going to go ahead and use this more brief application this morning. It's down in Matthew chapter 9, starting in verse 20, and going down going down through Route. 22 other setup, of course, has Jarius the synagogue leader, has send a message to Jesus at his daughter is ill and dying and ask Jesus to come and take and heal the child and on the way there. Jesus asked who touched me? This is verse 20. Just in a woman who'd been subject to bleeding. For 12 years, came up behind him and touch the edge of his cloak. She said to herself, if I only touches clothes, if only Touch the Hem of His Garment, as some Persians would, I will be healed. Jesus turned and saw her take heart daughter. He said your face as he used you and the woman was healed at that moment. She knew that Jesus was our only chance the picture you get of this woman. And certainly in the other Gospels, it is somebody who's suffered a great deal. She's at the end of her rope, she's at the end of our finances. She's looking for some way that she might be better and she has this trust. He has this confidence that God could do that. He doesn't really know how to get the attention of the Messiah. She doesn't know how to have a discussion with Jesus and I think she probably convinces herself. I don't even need to, if I could just touch his clothes, I'll be well, And she is and she accomplishes. And she received what she wants in her life?

What are hope Dwayne's, what are hope Wayne's. Excuse me, I drains away, we get to the place where we don't function as energetically or as effectively as we ought to. And, as I thought about that, I think we offer Doug's wind up in different stages of life and we don't really know how to deal with those stages. And sometimes maybe we're even frustrated with ourselves or disappointed in, maybe how other people may see us because we are at that particular phase. And and the first phase, I'd like to look at this morning is what I would just call that phase where you just tie a knot and hold on me. All you've seen that that kitten hanging on the clothesline, you know, and it says, hang in there baby. Sometimes that's all you can do. That's all you can do is just hold on and you're not totally sure that you're going to be able to do that very long. And that's a hard place to be. Too frustrating place to be when some guy stands up and talk to him about whole. It's like wait a minute, you know, if you knew what was going on in my life as if you knew what I was dealing with it this moment if you knew all the things that are challenging me then you wouldn't be talked to me about Hulk because I'm just in the business of surviving right now. And yet, I think those things are still connected. I think that even in our darkest moments Even in our most difficult times, we're looking for the hope that is the promise of our god, do the promise of our savior, we can have the resources to do the things that need to be done. Our world doesn't give much Credence to this, you know? And I think a good example of that me bereavement leave and I don't know what your company's like or the people that you work for. But in a lot of situations is it you know, if you lose a relative you can have a day if you lose a spouse you can have to and it's like we wait a second, you know. Maybe at the most I've never heard of anybody. Having more than a we can you get over a loss in a week. No a month, a year. Who knows? It's a very individual see but in our world, we are not given very long to bounce back. No matter what's happening are lies. People take the time you need but be ready by Monday. We got money to make and there's product to get out there if there was responsibilities. So we might wish are we might extend verbally this patient's but rarely does that translate in live. And so we find all kinds of situations where I need some time to deal with this. I need to work through this. I need some help. I need some support. And frequently we get kind of response, it makes us feel kind of guilty but you're not doing your part. And this happens in all kinds of contacts. I can't tell you how many times I've had conversations with college, students, who say, I don't feel like I'm doing anything. I feel like I need to be doing more for the kingdom of God. And my voice is always right now. You're getting training to do more for the kingdom of God. We used to actually go to a A youth. Convention. I guess it's best way to describe it and there was a missionary organization there that was encouraging young people. To stop their college education between their sophomore and junior year and do a couple years of mission work. And I understand what they were doing, I really do. But when you see that happening in this did happen to the people that I know there were a lot of those kids who didn't go back for their junior or senior year, I needed to finish. I needed to have that done. And sometimes, God is preparing us for something. He's training us or shaping up or is molding us. And we're saying, God, why am I still feeling so overwhelmed? Why am I still feeling so so defeated? Why do I continue to feel so exhausted? And God I think answers back to us,

Rest be patient, grow strong, use my resources steak this time. How much time don't know only. You would know only God would though but in your consultation in your prayers and your meditation with God still leaves you in that direction. Now, this is a slippery slope and you already thinking about it because when you rest your tempted to stay, there is this the day that I start back. Well, I'll take it of the day, Satan says, take it off. When I left youth ministry. They came to me and said, would you go to camp with us? That's it. I'm going to take a little break from Camp, never been back to camp and that's not really easy to say I'm not going to do that for a while. It becomes much longer than what you really intended. So Satan's going to be trying to attack us there but if you were at that place today we're all you can do is tie a knot and hold on this. Hold on. Trust that the God give that to God and let him help you through that. Jesus is walking among the people who were handicapped at the pool of Bethesda. He comes across that guy and just helped basically. And I don't think I want to do is help him get down into the pool, and she's just as I have now, I want you to rise. Take up your bed and walk. Can't you just see the guys expression? I can't walk if I could walk. I wouldn't be down here. You want me to just stand up, roll up my bed and just beginning to walk. Yeah exactly. You can do that and when we find ourselves getting a little stronger in that area that. Of time we're just barely hanging on that's if we start to walk just a little bit.

First John chapter 1 verses 6 and 7. We claim to have fellowship with him. And yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the life, we have fellowship with one another. The blood of Jesus his son purifies us from all sin, some people refer to their spiritual journey as their wall. And if you go back to the King James version, one of the things we missed in the book of the book of Ephesians, is that over and over Paul, refers to our walk, five to seven times. At that book, He's referring to our walk. I like that so much. The more modern versions come along and just change it to life and that's okay. But will you view it as your walk with God? I want to start walking. Maybe, maybe you and the neighbor you the friend, are you and your spouse? Go out and walk in the evenings. It's a good thing. It's a good time of year to do that right now. Start out, we're doing things on our walk. and then, if we, Get stronger. Maybe you might want to jog a little bit. Might want to, I want to take your walk to run. I will be live in Houston. I really like running because he is totally flat. You can get out there and you can just stay for a long time, and it really is not fun at all. Did you have to go up and down in the other challenges is is very much there, but Sometimes running feels really good. I know I used to think he's about as out of energy is somebody could get in one day. He was out in the yard when we were over by the neighbor's house and have all these cedar trees planted along the property. And I thought I better get him home because he's going to need a nap really quick before at this point in time, is it okay? If I see exactly the trees, you know, if he's going through all these cedar trees, he had plenty of energy to keep doing that, it felt good to run and he wanted to do that. Sometimes your pets and livestock will just run because they need to, they feel it or they they want to or maybe it just feels good to them. But as we grow as we move as we utilize the resources of God, we get to the Play Store.

Can actually run.

Isaiah chapter 40 and you probably already thought of this verse the last verse of 40 verse 31, But those who hope in the Lord, whose it address to those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. I will walk and not grow faint at the promise. And the promise comes to us via hope. We're going to run and not go weary or going to walk and not going to faint and we're going to soar on wings like eagles.

Rihanna Fly.

Years ago, I was reading a book. I think the book was written by Faye Kellerman. I'm not sure. And I tried to find the book and I actually couldn't find it. So if you know what this book is, please help me to still identify a little bit later on if the stories about these children, who are being taken away from their parents. Or they've been put it into this kind of secret training program. And now, they're very valuable when they've escaped, you know, until all these bad guys are looking for a woman and they finally have them pinned down in the corner where they're up against the wall. And just as the bad guys are going to take the children, the children fly away. Now, in my initial reading of that, I was like, It's not fair. You know, you haven't said anything about flying, there's not been any foreshadowing that that might be a possibility and and now the children just fly away. But as I looked at the story and, and and read it over and over again. Over and over again, it makes it makes more sense. And it really is looking at a resource that they did have. I Think Jesus spent the bulk of his ministry, trying to convince his disciples if they could fly.

Things he says to do. but if you can move a mountain,

With God, all things are possible and over and over again he's saying to them, get out of what you can do as a human, you can do great things as human being and we can do those kind of things that we want to and then we're able to. But God has in mind for us to do things that are even beyond what we believe he would be skin do May remember the very first Superman movie with Christopher, Reeve of the tagline, you will believe a man could fly. He said, just kind of gotten to the point where I actually could make you feel that before you come to feel like it was a guy on the string, you know, that was a behind or in front of some kind of a bag brown. We gotta believe that God can do more than what we sing. And part of that hope and part of that trust and part of that confidence, is this understanding that if I go with this like God wants me to, he might bleed me in some places where I'm going to need. Dramatic Supernatural.

but when I'm led by the spirit to those places, and to those opportunities I'm in power, through God's spirit, To do sometimes really, really dramatic things. Now, if you look at those things from. I'm not hanging on to walking or running to Flying, please don't get the idea that that's a permanent transition. You know, sometimes you make those steps and you wind up from being out here, doing things that are really dramatic back to hang it on, just for a while. Again, you got to learn to walk and run to go back through the master those things then. Stay always because Satan throws some really difficult things in our lives. The only thing that Satan will do that, we have to keep in mind is if you're a runner and he can keep you a walker, he's want to do that. If you're somebody who has the ability the opportunity to face a really, believe what I could do with them, and he can hold you back from that. Even if you're doing good thing, He's feels like he's want. That's what he wants to do. Look quickly with me at 1st Peter, chapter 1.

Instead of not able to cut and paste right now. So, 1st Peter, chapter 1. The first first, we'll look at is first 13.

Therefore, with Minds that are alert and fully sober set. Your Hope on the grace to be brought to you. When Jesus Christ is revealed and his coming. He promises us that he's coming back. It's not a win the lottery. Hope it's a confident trusting hope that the day comes when God's son comes back. To this life into this world. We look forward to that. We hope for that day. We accept that challenge, and we long for that opportunity because we have confidence through. God, would you pray with me, please?

Your father in Heaven. We thank you for your word. We thank you for Faith and Hope and love. Father, we know that we live by faith, but we also know that this whole thing, trust drives Us in Buddhist and motivates us and leads us in feed this father, we pray for a greater portion. We paint, we pray for for a double portion so that you will give us what we need and what we want. So that we can fully be the instruments that you have in mind for us. Father, forgive us our mistakes. Help us in our times of weakness, I was to rest, and grow and return to the work and Inspire and motivate us and lift us up to do the great things that you have in mind for us to do you pray this to your precious son. Amen.

Philip 10 versus back in 1st. Peter chapter 1, this time in verse 3, He says, praise be to God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. and his great Mercy, he has given us New Birth, Into a Living Hope. Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the opportunity to enter into a watery grave. To be buried. and to be resurrected, and all of that, within the context and motivated by this living, hope that Jesus demonstrated through his resurrection If you need to do that today, we'd be glad to help you do that. We extend God's invitation. Are we standing sing this song together?