HOPE

Written by cycleguy on March 16th, 2017

I’m pretty sure you have heard the saying,

“We can live 40 days without food, eight days without water, four minutes without air, but only a few seconds without hope.”

There is some truth to that statement. If you have ever met someone who was in a truly helpless situation then you know how despairing it can be.

We often quote the phrase “Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is love.” Of the trio, faith and love are given most of the press and discussion. Hope is like the forgotten sister. In reality though, hope stands tall and is vital to all who want to follow Jesus and keep a right perspective on this life and the life to come.

After two faltering weeks on “Black hats/White hats” I decided to scrap that sermon and move on to the next one. This sermon is, as you probably guessed, on Hope and is taken from I John 2:28- 3:3.  We have a hope here and now. But we also have a hope for eternity. C.S. Lewis once said,

Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is to do.

Thanks for praying for me for this Sunday. It is appreciated more than you know.

 

 

15 Comments so far ↓

  1. Jeff says:

    I’m glad you scrapped the Black and White stuff. That would be the hardline legalistic way of life.
    I like to think I have faith in my fellow primates, I certainly have faith in our democratic principles, I have hope in a better tomorrow for everyone, and a commitment to charity ( I don’t know when charity became love)in the discussion. And none of it means a continual looking forward to the eternal world.(You only have one known life, here, and you should make the best of it) The eternal world is credulous and wishful thinking and probably a form of escapism. Geez, I’ll be able to talk to my dead relatives some day if I make the right propitiations in this world.

    • cycleguy says:

      The black/white hat was not meant to be a legalistic way of looking at life. There are ways bad guys acts; there are ways good guys act. There are supposed to be ways followers of Christ act which are different than their counterparts. that was my point. I am one of those people who do look forward to the eternal.

      • jeff says:

        Hey Bill,

        Black and White can’t be anything but legalism. By definition. The only question is who gets to define good and bad. How followers of the Nazarene act is wide open to interpretation. Do they do what the Nazarene did? If they did they would follow Jewish law. That’s what the Nazarene did. Who said ham sandwiches were ok to eat. The Nazarene never said it and I’m guessing he never ate one. And he never said it was proper to ignore other Jewish laws. He actually said he wasn’t changing the law. Not one word. But the Christians changed all the laws they wanted and spun a story like Jesus would have approved but just didn’t happen to say so. And legalism by Christian law became a reality. Not by the law Jesus lived by.

  2. Ryan says:

    Praying all will go well and the message you are preparing is well received where it is needed.

  3. floyd says:

    Indeed. Our hope is confidence, not “wishing” as the lost world defines it.

    Praying for you, Bill.

  4. Zee says:

    I don’t think you can live even a few seconds without hope. The moment you lose it, you start merely existing.

    I think love and faith are only possible if hope is alive.

  5. Meekly Seeking says:

    I HOPE all goes well for you and your church family on Sunday. I’ll keep praying. God bless.

    To Jeff, the are no right propitiations WE can make. It’s all and only what He has done and continues to do in His grace. But I’m sure you’ve heard all this before. May your day be amazing.

  6. Absolutely! We cannot live without hope, Bill; it is what keeps us moving forward in faith.
    Blessings for a great sermon and Sunday!

  7. Betty Draper says:

    I have met a few hopeless people, they see dread in everything, everyone is out to get them or take them. I have a brother like that and he is so hard to be around. Hope is the glue for love and faith…