Untitled Sermon (3)

Hope is Here

Every town has a way of telling its own story. In a town like ours, that story often begins with the words, “Do you remember when?” Do you remember when that building downtown was full of people? Do you remember when there were more children in the schools, more young families in the neighborhoods, and more people filling the pews? Do you remember when businesses stayed open later, everybody knew everybody, and it seemed as though the town had more life in it? We can drive down the street and tell you what used to be behind almost every empty window. We remember the stores that once stood there, the people who owned them, and the families who gathered there. Sometimes we can remember what is gone more easily than we can see what is still here.

There is nothing wrong with remembering. There is something good and even sacred about honoring the people who came before us, remembering the sacrifices they made, and giving thanks for the faith they handed down to us. The church should never treat its history as though it does not matter. But there is a difference between being grateful for the past and trying to live in it. Memory can become something like a rocking chair. It gives us something to do, and it may even feel comfortable, but it does not take us anywhere. We can spend so much time rocking back and forth through yesterday that we fail to notice what God has placed in front of us today. And before long, discouragement begins to settle over a community.

Despair does not always arrive with tears. Sometimes it sounds like ordinary conversation: “Nothing is ever going to change.” “The young people are all leaving.” “Nobody cares anymore.” “Families are not what they used to be.” “The church will never be what it once was.” We repeat those words often enough, and eventually we begin to accept them as facts. We start calling hopelessness “being realistic.” We begin believing that because things are not what they used to be, God must be finished with us. But God has His people. God has not forgotten communities that do not make the news. He has not overlooked the people living on these roads, sitting around these kitchen tables, raising children and grandchildren, caring for aging parents, struggling with addiction, carrying financial burdens, grieving losses, or quietly wondering whether their lives still matter.

God still sees them. And God has placed His church right here among them. Paul writes in Galatians, “Let us not grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Paul uses the language of sowing and reaping because he knows something about hope. Hope is a lot like planting seed. When a farmer places seed into the ground, he cannot see what is happening beneath the surface. For a while, the field looks exactly the way it did before. There is no immediate evidence that anything is growing. But the farmer does not dig the seed back up every morning to see whether it is working. He keeps tending the field. He keeps trusting. He keeps doing what is his to do while leaving the growth to God. That is the kind of hope Paul is describing.

Hope is not pretending that the ground is not hard. Hope is carrying seed into the field anyway. Hope is not denying that our world has problems. Hope is refusing to let those problems decide whether we will pray, invite, serve, encourage, mentor, welcome, and witness. Hope is not sitting inside the church wishing people would come through the doors. Hope walks through those doors, rolls up its sleeves, and begins doing good. It visits the lonely. It encourages a struggling brother or sister. It makes room for a child. It checks on a neighbor. It welcomes the family that feels out of place. It invites someone who has nearly given up on church. It shows a young person that somebody sees potential in them.

It reminds a hurting family that they do not have to carry everything alone. We may not see the harvest immediately. We may plant seeds whose fruit will not appear for years. Some of us may never see all that God does with the prayers we pray, the invitations we offer, or the kindness we show. But faithfulness is never wasted in the hands of God. Isaiah tells us that even the young grow tired and weary. That means weariness is not necessarily evidence that we have failed. Sometimes we are tired because we have been carrying heavy things for a long time.

But Isaiah also says that those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. God does not ask a weary church to manufacture strength it does not have. He asks us to place our hope in the God who never grows tired, never becomes discouraged, and never gives up on His people. So perhaps the question before us is not simply, “What has happened to our town?” Perhaps the better question is, “What are we planting in it?” Are we planting criticism or encouragement? Are we planting fear or faith? Are we planting bitterness or grace? Are we merely preserving the memory of what God did yesterday, or are we planting seeds for what God may still do tomorrow? Because God has not called us to preserve yesterday. He has called us to plant hope today.