Now's The Time: To Recognize That Hope Is Here

Read Text: Romans 15:13

Now is the time to recognize that Hope is Here…

Hope is here Jesus is here.

Because we have gathered in His Name.

In Matthew 18:20 (NASB95) Jesus said: “… where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

Jesus is here!

And Jesus is the God of Hope:

As our text says: Romans 15:13 (NASB95) Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

There is a lot of hopelessness in our world today

People are feeling hopeless because of :

An economy with run-away inflation

Groceries for a family of 4 is $460 more than last year

That’s why we have started a food pantry.

We seem to be entering an economic slowdown or recession.

People will lose their jobs

They will feel hopeless.

The political in-fighting and constant turmoil in our government

It would be nice if politicians would actually be for the people they were elected to represent instead of just being out for themselves.

It can be really hard, but, with lots of prayer and faith in God, we can elect individuals who actually care about the best interests of this nation.

But you can only elect better politicians IF you are registered to vote and THEN actually vote.

I cannot encourage you strongly enough — please register, PRAY (a lot!) and vote.

We are glad to help you register online.

We are working on getting voter guides so you can make an informed decision.

People are hopeless because they have gone through tremendous loss.

We have 3 women here today who have just experienced the one year anniversary of their husbands’ death.

We have still others who, while it may have been, a while, even years, the loss of their husband still hurts.

Maybe you have lost someone, maybe it is even a relationship that has died.

These things are painful!

They can cause us to lose hope that the pain will ever ease or that you can past the lost

Through Jesus Christ, those who have lost loved ones to death have the hope of a great reunion day.

Where we will reunite with those who have gone before us.

There are many, many reasons you might be feeling sad and hopeless this morning — or whenever you may watch the video of this service.

But the Holy Spirit is speaking to your heart right now:

He is telling you, Now is the time to experience hope.

Right now!

Right now I can experience the hope that comes through Jesus.

Hope is something for which the world is searching because of how vital it is to our survival.

Dr. Dale Archer said, “If I could find a way to package and dispense hope, I would have a pill more powerful than any antidepressant on the market. Hope is often the only thing between [a person] and the abyss. As long as a patient, individual, or victim has hope, they can recover from anything and everything.”

Because…

A Person Can Handle Almost Anything When That Person Has Hope

But the question has to be,

Where do we get our hope?

A Recipe For Hope

HOPE—“Holding On, Praying Expectantly.”

​Christian Hope Comes From Knowing God’s Promises...

And Believing Those Promises Because It Is God Who Has Promised.

Those promises enable us to hold on in impossible times.

Where Is Your Trust? Upon what or in Whom Do You Hope?

In the verses preceeding our text we read about Christians living in Rome needing something to sustain them.

Like us in our day.

They needed to base their lives on truth rather than on circumstances that seemed to challenge truth.

Paul encouraged the believers in Rome with this prayer of hope:

​Romans 15:13 (The Message) Oh! May the God of great hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope!

The picture is of God as an overflowing fountain of hope who fills us with enough hope that it not only satisfies us…

… but also spreads to those around us. The God of hope creates hope inside of us, which radiates hope to others on God’s behalf.

Now, I am going to directly confront the culture of “ME!” that saturates our society.

If you follow Christ, it [life, everything] is NOT about you.

We see that very clearly at the beginning of this 15th chapter of Romans where the Apostle Paul says:

Romans 15:1–3 (The Message) Those of us who are strong and able in the faith need to step in and lend a hand to those who falter, and not just do what is most convenient for us. Strength is for service, not status. 2 Each one of us needs to look after the good of the people around us, asking ourselves, “How can I help?” 3 That’s exactly what Jesus did. He didn’t make it easy for himself by avoiding people’s troubles, but waded right in and helped out. “I took on the troubles of the troubled,” is the way Scripture puts it.

So the hope of Jesus is not just for me.

It is supposed to flow into me, through me and out to others who struggle with hopelessness.

So we look to the God of all hope to fill us with His hope, not just for my own benefit, but so that we can spread it to others.

A hope based on BELIEVING the Word of God.

Our text tells us that as we BELIEVE on the Word of God, we will not only be filled with an abounding hope, but we will also experience joy and peace.

Believing — trusting, the Word of God is our way out of any situation.

Because God’s Word is infallible

It contains burden-removing, yoke-destroying power,

And when we meditate on it and speak it, we will see changes in our lives.

Most of us are the same, aren’t we? After a lifetime of disillusion, we’ve come to expect little else but disappointment.

However, while the facts about our situation may look bleak, the truth found in God’s Word brings light, hope, and deliverance.

We can’t handle life’s challenges alone, and God doesn’t want us to do so.

He loves us, and as long as we believe this in our heart, we have access to His divine intervention.

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul said that without Christ, without God, a person really doesn’t have any hope at all:

Ephesians 2:12 CSB At that time [i.e. before you had a saving relationship with Jesus] you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.

Apart from Christ we have no hope.

Depending on this world, the wealth of this world can leave us hopeless.

To Timothy the Apostle Paul said,

1 Timothy 6:17 CSB Instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant or to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.

Throughout God’s Word—which we are told to place our hope upon because it has always been true and transformative—we are told to place our hope in the Lord.

One of my favorite verses is:

Psalm 146:5 CSB Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God,

And so, this all begs the question: What is hope?

The word itself comes from the old English word hopa, which means having a confident assurance in the future.

Many relate hope to an emotion or feeling, but it’s so much more than just a feeling or thinking that something good might happen.

Nor is it wishful or pie-in-the-sky thinking, like, “The Weight Loss Cure They Don’t Want You to Know About.”

Having the hope Jesus gives is a certainty.

It’s a belief that sustains us, it holds us up under than most adverse circumstances, and it enables us to endure life when everything is falling to pieces around us.

The only place from which such hope comes is from the Lord God.

It is the knowledge that God loves us so much that He was willing to send His Son, Jesus Christ, to this earth to die upon the cross to pay for our sins, so that we can have an abundant life both now and in heaven.

Jesus said,

John 10:10 CSB A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy [Jesus is talking about the devil]. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.

So Jesus came to give us an abundant life and as our text tells us, abounding hope.

How Can I Receive That Hope?

Turn to Jesus!

Now’s the time!

The scripture I prayed at the beginning of the service is VERY applicable to right now:

2 Corinthians 6:1–2 (TPT) Now, since we are God’s coworkers, we beg you not to take God’s marvelous grace for granted, allowing it to have no effect on your lives. 2 For He [God!] says, I listened to you at the time of My favor. And the day when you needed salvation, I came to your aid. So can’t you see? Now is the time to respond to his favor! Now is the day of salvation!

This time of favor, this day of salvation is available to all.

You are not excluded.

Oh pastor, you don’t understand!

I’ve done terrible things!

I’ve NEVER been to church or …

I haven’t been to church in years.

That doesn’t matter!

Salvation

God’s favor

Abounding hope in the midst of hopelessness IS AVAILABLE TO YOU.

RIGHT NOW!

All you have to do is turn to God.

Cry out to Him.

Salvation will come as we repent of our sins and believe in our heart that God raised Jesus from the dead.

As Romans 10:8–10 (NASB95) … “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART”—that is, the word of faith which we are preaching, 9 that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; 10 for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.

Have you done that?

If not I encourage you to do so — right now because NOW’s the time.

Pray with me right now.

[Pray a prayer of repentance and surrender.]

As the worship team comes to the platform…

If you have already repented of your sins and surrendered to Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you may STILL experience times where you feel hopeless.

Walking with Jesus is not a shield against tough things.

I’m sorry if some other preacher told you that lie.

Please forgive them.

The Bible is very clear in MANY places, that even those following after God go through tough things.

So, as James 1:2–4 (TPT) My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can! 3 For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up power within you to endure all things. 4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.

Even in trials you can have abounding hope along with peace and joy.

The abounding hope of Romans 15:13 given by the God of hope is for you.

Now’s the time!

Maybe you just need to be willing to admit — and I know this is hard:

I’m NOT sufficient in myself.

I NEED others to pray with me and for me.

I need the strength of their hope to flow into me — and Now’s the time for it.

I come forward asking for prayer for God’s hope to flow within me to renew me, to strengthen me.

Altar call.

This Afternoon!

At 5:00 pm I would like for us to focus on another reason for hope — Jesus is coming back.

I believe He is coming soon.

That should inspire great hope in us.