Soccer Saturday - Hope

Keep it short!

I think it’s important when we gather at church, as a church family, that we take every opportunity to focus on Christ.

And I promise this will be short.

But I wanted to take a quick minute to talk about “Hope” today, what it isn’t, what it is, and why it’s important.

I was reading this article about Chris Kirkland a couple days ago, the once great hope of England football in regards to the goalkeeping department.

In fact, his dad had so much confidence in his son’s goalkeeping abilities, that when Chris was 14, his dad put a bet on his son that he would play for england by the time he was 30.

Turns out, he was right and Chris turned out for England at the age of 25 in 2006, causing his dad to win 10,000 pounds on a hundred pound bet.

Kirkland caught the eye of Liverpool while playing for Coventry, and they shelled out 6 mil pounds for him in 2001, which in today’s inflated transfer market doesn’t seem like a lot, but at the time it was quite a hefty sum for a goalkeeper.

Things didn’t really pan out for him and he four years at Liverpool, playing only 45 times, and then working his ways around the lower teams in the league and first division, never really fulfilling the potential he seemed to have.....leaving England fans to wonder if their hope had been misplaced

It was while he was at Wigan Athletic though, that he really got a good run of games and began to show his vast potential.....earning an England start against Greece.

In fact, his dad had so much confidence in his son’s goalkeeping abilities, that when Chris was 14, his dad put a bet on his son that he would play for england by the time he was 30.

Turns out, he was right and Chris turned out for England at the age of 25 in 2006, causing his dad to win 10,000 pounds on a hundred pound bet.

While his dad’s hope in his son had been realized, England’s great hope never really materialized into what they had been expecting.

See, we often put our hope in things that either a, don’t really matter, or b, we don’t really have any right in putting our hope in to start with

And we are all guilty of this:

I hope (sometimes quite desperately) that Liverpool will win today, and win the title

My dad and Bill Putty, both hope for the opposite thing to happen

See, we use hope today with a sense of something good that might happen in the future. It’s accompanied with a hint of uncertainty. It’s hope in ourselves or hope dependent on mankind

And when we rest our hope on ourselves or mankind on even more serious things than a game of soccer, like work, family, big life decisions, we are often led down a path of despair.

Chris Kirkland

This article I was reading about Chris was focused on this depression he was facing, to the point that he feared he might take his life.

When I was reading this article, all I could think was this, “what a sad tale of misplaced hope”

Hope in himself

Hope in accolades

Hope in living up to the pressures bestowed on him.

Do you see the misplaced hope?

But that’s not how the Bible uses hope. The Bible uses hope with this air of certainty, that this thing will definitely happen.

If this was how we viewed and used hope today, Chris Kirkland’s dad would have put his entire life value on his son making good on his hope.

tells us this, “ 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.”

True Hope is connected to full assurance of our faith

Meaning, hope is rooted in the full assurance of our faith

So basically, true hope is dependent on the work of Jesus Christ and the assurance we have in that

And when we have that true hope, we are to hope without wavering

When our faith is in Christ, we are to stand firmly, without wavering, with complete confidence in who He is, what He did, and what He said He is going to do

We no longer live lives of hoping we do enough, or hoping we’ve lived up to standards

Spurgeon says, “Oh! let not they hopes or fears come between thee and Jesus; follow hard after him, and he will never fail thee.”

We have no fear of failure

Our hope is rooted in His faithfulness

When times seem hopeless, even to the uttermost hopelessness being death, our hope is and only should be in God’s faithfulness

, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”

I’m guilty of misplacing my hope, for years I spent way too much energy and focus on hoping I would be this great soccer player, hoping that Liverpool would win a title, hoping that I would have a good job with great pay, hoping that I would have this perfect family and life....not that those things are bad.

But all of this hope was placed in myself and the misplaced desires of this world

I guess I just wanted to challenge us here, a lot of us as men and dads, some of us as kids and teens, to rest our hope in Him, and not the uncertain things of this world.

Only hope and faith in Him do we have assurance, do we have truth

Only through true hope can we lay aside the loft expectations of this world, pick up our cross and follow Him through this life.