Sermon Tone Analysis

As Vice President, George Bush represented the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev.

Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow.

She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed.

Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest.

There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong.

She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.

The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city's hospitals.

One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child.

She took the child's name and room number and talked briefly with the child's regular class teacher.

"We're studying nouns and adverbs in his class now," the regular teacher said, "and I'd be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn't fall too far behind."

The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon.

No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain.

Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, "I've been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs."

When she left she felt she hadn't accomplished much.

But the next day, a nurse asked her, "What did you do to that boy?"

The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize.

"No, no," said the nurse.

"You don't know what I mean.

We've been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed.

He's fighting back, responding to treatment.

It's as though he's decided to live."

Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived.

Everything changed when he came to a simple realization.

He expressed it this way: "They wouldn't send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?"

1-WHY DO WE NEED HOPE?

A-WE NEED HOPE BECAUSE WE LIVE IN A FALLEN WORLD.

B-WE NEED HOPE BECAUSE WE DESERVE DEATH.

2-THE PROMISE OF HOPE.

A-SOMETIMES WE MUST WAIT FOR OUR HOPE.

ISAIAH

PSALMS

ISAIAH

B-GOD SENT SOMEONE TO PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE COMING HOPE.

B-GOD SENT SOMEONE TO PREPARE THE WAY FOR THE COMING HOPE.

MARK

C-GOD TOLD HIS PEOPLE THAT THERE WAS A HOPE TO COME.

PSALMS

ISAIAH

3-WHERE DOES HOPE COME FROM?

A-GOD HAS A PLAN OF HOPE FOR US.

PSLAMS 62:5

JER.

B-OUR HOPE CAN BE FOUND IN JESUS CHRIST.

PSALMS

PSALMS