Keeping Hope Alive

1 Peter 1:3-9 Well, here we are in the cold, damp, dark of winter.  The colors are dull and the candles are dim.  The holidays are a fading memory.  The house is empty and void of laughter, and the Visa bill is on its way to greet you.  How do you keep hope alive in the bleak midwinter?

These are uncertain times, you’ll have to agree.  Turbulent, volatile, unsettling times.  We’re still experiencing the great recession.  The pillars of capitalism have cracked and the foundations of our Western way of life are being tested.  There’s a lot that’s crumbling just now.  There have been signs of recent fracture.  Can the European Union and the  euro survive.  There appears to be a gathering storm.  East against the West.  There are tensions.  If China sneezes it seems we all catch a cold, and if Greece and Italy have the flu, it becomes contagious.  The faces of our political leaders do not instill confidence.  There is gridlock.  There’s partisan politics.  There’s arrogance, indifference, and greed.

It brings to mind the nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall, where all the brain trust of the kingdom couldn’t seem to put it together again.  The human family is growing larger and more diverse.  We need help.  Divine help.

The question of this morning is, how do you keep hope alive during uncertain times?  We need hope.  Hope sustains us.  It propels us into the future.  Hope is essential to the human spirit.  Hope is to the spirit what breathing is to the body.  John Eldredge, in his book, The Sacred Romance, shares this.  In the trinity of Christian graces, faith, hope, and love, love may be the greatest, but hope plays the deciding role.

The apostle Paul agrees that faith and love depend on hope.  Colossians 1:5 reads, faith and love spring from the hope that is stored up for you in heaven.  Our courage for the journey so often falters because we forget the hope of heaven.  The reason most men falter is because they live lives of quiet desperation.  There abide faith, hope and love.  These are elemental.  Foundational to a relational life.  But it’s our dreams and our hopes that give us passion for life.

William Coureth was a profound writer back in the late 19th century, early 20th century.  He wrote a piece of prose which I find very fascinating.  It traces the progression of life from childhood to adulthood, marked by our hopes and dreams.  It goes like this.

We are all of us dreamers of dreams.  On visions our childhood is spent and the heart of a child is un-haunted, it seems, by the ghosts of dreams that are dead.  From childhood to youth’s but a span and the years of our life are soon sped, but the youth is no longer a youth but a man, when the first of his dreams is dead.  Tis a cup of wormwood and gall, when the doom of a great man is said and the best of a man is under a pall when the best of his dreams is dead.  He may live on by compact and plan, when the fine bloom of living is shed, but God pity the little that’s left of a man when most of his dreams are dead.  Let him show a brave face if he can.  Let him woo fame and fortune instead, but there’s not much to do but to bury a man, when the last of his dreams is dead.

Have you seen the hollow, vacant look in the eyes of a person who has lost all to live for?  Perhaps you’ve been to life care and seen the random wheelchairs through the hallways, and the vacant look, the blank stare of those who have lost hope.  Yes, these are uncertain times.  Some of our dreams and hopes may falter.  There are situations that are hopeless but that doesn’t mean we cannot be hopeful.

Yesterday I was at the bedside of Joe Draughon.  He has been in the hospital since October 3.  It’s been an up-and-down experience for him and his family.  There’s not much hope for him.  I think his time is nearly come, to pass.  But he is still hopeful.  He still can smile and he still can give me that wink and squeeze my hand when we talk.  He has a trache.  He can’t communicate.  His body is so swollen that he can’t write.  It’s pretty hopeless, but he’s still hopeful.

We may not be able to change certain things, people and situations, but WE can change and adjust our view and perhaps look a little longer and wider and see God’s ultimate purposes.

There have been other times in history when there has been not enough hope to go around. When there’s been too little hope and too much despair.

Once upon a time there was a fair and splendid kingdom.  Its leaders were noble and civility reigned.  Services were provided.  Burdens lessened.  It was a time of relative peace, yet through intrigue and deception, a new leader came to power.  By a path of torce and bloodshed.  His schemes were always at the expense of others and he had one thought in mind.  How can I manipulate things in my favor?  He was responsible for great damages to the state and distinguished himself as a heinous, malicious criminal.  It turns out that he arranged the death of his own mother and brutally did his wife in.

He was suspected of setting a fire in a central part of the city.  He was the original drama queen of A.D. 64.  Tradition has it that he sang and played while Rome burned.  The Ceasars were deemed gods, however the last Caesar, Nero, didn’t have a noble bone in his body.  He was a despicable person.  Diabolical.  Depraved.  A wretch of a man.  The devil incarnate.

His life echoed the sentiments recorded in Isaiah attributed to Lucifer.  I will ascend to heaven.  I will raise my throne above the stars of God.  I will become like the most high.  Left to his own devices, Nero regressed into a beast-like state and was swallowed by his own lust.  His popularity waned when his grandiose plans for revitalizing and revamping Rome were revealed.  It seems a very large part of the city was to become his new home.  It just happened to be where the epicenter of the fire was set.

Needing to pin charges, there was a ready group at hand.  The Christians, who had made themselves very unpopular by their refusal to worship the emperor and by their quiet life.  The Christians became the needed scapegoat and two of Christianity’s most noted teachers, Peter and Paul, were in Rome at this time.  To the Romans, to the Christians in Rome and to those on the outskirts of Rome and the other parts of the kingdom, Nero was an unpredictable despot who at any time might gather them for brutal punishment and savage entertainment in the colosseums.  These spectacles were planned with the utmost precision and cruelty.  Christians were exposed to wild animals.  They were smeared with pitch and set on fire to light up the night.  The executions were so grisly that even the spectators, the populace, were dismayed and displayed sympathy for the victims.

Tradition has it that Peter was crucified upside down on what is now Vatican Hill.  The apostle Paul was beheaded on a main road leading into Rome.  It was a horrific time requiring deep faith in God who works all things for the good of those who are called according to his purpose.

Nero’s attempts to scapegoat the Christians backfired and it caused many followers of Jesus to hold their heads up high.  To walk forward and to leave family and possessions and life itself behind.  The early Christians were a spectacle of faith, hope and love to the watching cosmopolitan Roman world.

Nero’s attempts to shift the blame to the Christians failed and the Roman Senate voted to flog him to death.  But he escaped Rome to a villa about 4 miles out of town and there, as the Roman Legion approached, he killed himself, and his last words, the last words of this deluded lunatic were reported to be, what an artist the world loses in me.

Well, power corrupts, doesn’t it?  And absolute power corrupts absolutely, unless that power is in the hands of our Creator God.  What a contrast between God and Nero.  Between the power of love and the love of power.  The power of love will sacrifice and give and do whatever they can for others.  Those who love power will stop at nothing to get what they want and what they desire.

But God does not use his power to intimidate or coerce or force.  Our all-powerful creator demonstrated the ultimate power of love through the incarnation, stooping low, by kneeling down and washing even the feet of the one who would betray him.  Voluntarily subjecting himself to the destructive consequences of man’s selfishness.  Enduring the cross, the most brutal, humiliating, painful way conceivable to destroy one’s enemies.  Love is the greatest power and has the most significant, profound influence and love begets love.  We love because he first loved us, and what we’ve received and experienced by his grace, we will endeavor to extend to others.

So here we see a picture of a God who is for us.  Not wanting any to perish, and through the voice of Ezekiel and Hosea says, I take no delight in the death of the wicked.  How can I give you up.  How can I let you go.  God is not a stern taskmaster who says, do this or die.  Why?  Because I say so, that’s why.  But rather he is one who says, let me help you with this.  Let me help you understand.  Trust me on this one.  You know, I’ve been around for a while.  And when we fall he says, we can do better next time.  And when we have a success he says, nice one.

Here we are, living on earth.  Caught in the crossfire in the midst of a great controversy.  Choosing between the power of love and the love of power.

How do you keep hope alive when there’s a villain in power?  Satan, Nero, our politicians.  How do you keep hope alive when sometimes the villain is in you?  Do you disappoint yourself sometimes?  I do, and I see something deep within, the depravity of man, I disappoint myself.  Sometimes the villain is in me, is in you.  How do we keep hope alive in the world we live in?

In this story of hardship and persecution in ancient Rome we see the picture of the early Christians who faced a time not unlike what we may face someday.  I find it interesting that the epistle of Peter, this little letter, was written by Peter, most likely in Rome, perhaps just a stone’s throw from Nero and his palace.  Peter was in Rome at this time.  Peter and Nero were contemporaries, and the times back then were much like the times we anticipate as Christians.

This letter that Peter wrote was addressed to the Christians in Rome but also to those citizens throughout Rome and the Christians wherever they were.  It was a letter of encouragement.  A call to persevere.  I’d like to read it to you from The Message version.  I Peter.  First Peter 1:1.  I Peter, an apostle on assignment by Jesus the Messiah write to the exiles scattered to the four winds.  Not one is missing.  Not one forgotten.  God the father has his eye on each of you and has determined, by the work of his spirit, to keep you obedient to the sacrifice of Jesus.  Don’t you like that?

Peter was writing to the exiles.  The disciples.  The early Christians throughout the empire, and he says to them, not one of you is missing, not one forgotten.  God the father has his eye on each one of you and has determined that you will stand. That you’ll be successful.  It’s guaranteed.  You can be sure.  Just as sure as Jesus was resurrected and went through those times of difficulty, you also, with God’s careful watch and the presence of the spirit, will be victorious.  And you can be hopeful, because what you hope for is just around the corner.  It’s within reach.

Then verse three through five.  What a God we have and how fortunate we are to have him.  This father of our master Jesus, because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life, and everything to live for, including a future in heaven and the future starts now.  God is keeping careful watch over us and the future, and the day is coming when you will have it all.  Life healed and whole.

Verses six and seven.  I know how great that makes you feel, even though you have to put up with every kind of aggravation in the meantime.  Pure gold put in the fire comes out as proof pure.  Genuine faith put through the furnace of suffering comes out genuine.  When Jesus wraps this all up, it’s your faith, not your goal that he’s going put on display, and it is evidence of his victory.

Verses eight and nine speak to the early Christians who didn’t have the joy of walking and seeing Jesus.  But it also speaks to you and me in the 21st century.  You have never seen him, yet you love him.  You don’t see him, yet you trust him.  With laughter and singing.  Because you have kept on believing, you’ll get what you’re looking for.  Total salvation.  This passage, read in light of what was going on during this time, gives us today hope and courage for the future.  What we hope for nothing can destroy, wither or spoil.  God is keeping safe watch over it in heaven.  When the curtain falls and the story ends we know that we will be part of those who live happily ever after.  We have cause for great joy, even though we have suffering and trials and we smart for a while here.

There’s an ancient letter that was written in 258 AD.  It was written to a friend.  This seems to be a cheerful world Donutus when I view it from this fair garden under the vine.  But if I climb some great mountain and look out over the whole land, you know very well what I would see.  I would see brigades on the high roads.  There would be pirates on the seas and in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds.  This is a bad world Donutus.  A very bad world, but I have discovered in the midst of this world a quiet and holy people.  They have discovered a joy that is 1000 times greater than any of the joys, the pleasures of this sinful life.  They are despised, they are persecuted, but they care not.  They have overcome the world.  These people, Donutus, are the Christians and I am one of them.  Written by Cyprian.

The first Christians were called the followers of the way.  They had found the way of life because they knew and followed the Lord Jesus, the way, the truth and the light.  They lived together.  They ate together.  They fought together.  They celebrated together.  John Eldredge in his book, Waking the Deads says they were intimate allies.  They had a fellowship of the heart, and how wonderful it would be if we find the same, and how dangerous it is if we do not.

This life we are living is not meant to live alone.  This journey we’re taking cannot be taken alone.  We must have allies of the heart.  That’s why fellowship, and community and time together is so important.  We need each other, encouraging us, to look forward with anticipation to the future, the reality, and to focus more clearly in the distance that which is to come.  We need to be more farsighted, not so nearsighted.  We need to be more focused on the future, less concerned with the here and now.

But you would say, pastor, we are here and it is now.  What do we do when our hopes and dreams collide with reality?  How do you keep hope alive when your friends are in trouble?  When you’re about to graduate and the prospects for work don’t look too good?  How you keep hope alive when you’re lonely and you haven’t found Mr. right or Miss always right?  When you’ve lost your job or you may lose your house?  When your energy has turned to fatigue?  When your health is failing and the prognosis isn’t good?  When your spouse has died and you walk into a lonely future?  When Jesus soon coming isn’t soon enough?

Hope takes on a different perspective and complexion as we journey through life.  Have you noticed?  To a fourth-grader, hope may be for a special family vacation or it may be, I hope the kids stop making fun of me and accept me.  Hope to a teen might be, I hope my parents can learn to love again.  For those of us who are older, it might simply be, I hope I can remember.  And for all of us, there is the blessed hope.  How do you keep hope alive with life accumulating bumps, bruises and disappointments?  In the face of aging or poor health?  In the barrage of bad news that we get?  How do you keep hope alive and not become cynical, pessimistic, skeptical, angry; a bitter old man or bitter old woman.  How do you keep from doing that?  How you keep hope alive when there’s so much pain and suffering around us?

You know, the prayer concerns of our church family and our wider community are overwhelming.  They’re huge at times.  To be quite honest, it is difficult for me to make that pilgrimage to see Joe Draughon repeatedly, because what hope is there for a man who is declining and terminal.  Perhaps we need to reconsider our point of view.  To step back, to zoom out, to look wider, longer, further into the future and see God’s plan.  His ultimate plan and purposes.

I like Ecclesiastes 3.  You remember this passage?  There’s a time for everything under the sun.  Solomon in his musings here is resigned to the fact that in this life there is an appointed time for all sorts of things.  There’s a time to be born and a time to die.  A time to plant and a time to uproot.  There’s even a time for those things we do not relish and just for humor sake sometime, I’d like you to read Ecclesiastes 12:1 through 5, and there is depicted a fascinating description of the downhill slide.  What it’s like to be 50 something and going downhill.  It’s an amazing sharing of his story.

But the good news in Ecclesiastes 3 is found in verse 11 where it says, God has placed eternity in our hearts.  God has placed eternity in our hearts.  We long for and desire to be with him and with each other, and for life to continue.  That’s something resident within us.  A gift from God.

To keep hope alive and to grow older gracefully, we must accept the reality of our changing condition, while not losing sight of the hope that is within us and the eternity that God has placed in our hearts.  How do you embrace well the joys and opportunities of every life phase, yet accept the reality that some dreams, be honest, some dreams we have to let go.  Some dreams are just not going to happen.  Some dreams may have to be future.  How do you sort through your hopes and dreams, what might have been, what still can be and what you hope for in eternity.

I think part of the secret is embracing where you are right now.  If you’re just starting out, relish the simple life.  If you’re newly married, enjoy the quiet evenings.  If you have a young family with children, be glad you’re young.  If you have a turbulent teen comfort yourself with the fact that they will return someday and actually ask your opinion.  If you have the empty nest, get reacquainted with your spouse.  Invest in the lives of others.

This was a beautiful holiday season for our family.  Both my boys were back here with their wives and my one granddaughter.  We had a wonderful time.  Time for games and conversation.  Sitting by the hearth and stoking the fire.

Then January came.  It’s quiet.  The laughter is gone, and to top it off I lost my little bird, my parakeet.  Wednesday, after prayer meeting, went home and Linda had found him in the laundry room, on the floor, quiet.  No more life.  My little friend who would look for me in the morning, come find me, sit on my shoulder.  Just be my companion.  The house is really empty.  We truly have an empty nest in a funny, sad sort of way.

But whatever season of life you’re in,  embrace it and enjoy it.  If you’re retired like Pastor Gettys, quiet reflection, perhaps more time for volunteerism, more time to know him.  If you’re in your senior years and old age is pushing at the door, remember that the aches and pains you’re experiencing are really God’s curriculum to help you grow and to trust and to be patient.  I would say to us who are getting up in years, work on leaving a laudable legacy.  Model an honorable life worth emulating.  Really, the one thing, regardless of our age, the one thing we take from earth to heaven is our character.  Our ultimate hope really, is to see him, to know him, to love him, to follow him.

In this life it seems there’s a time for everything.  I’d like to think that we would embrace each day to the fullest, but Ecclesiastes 3 talks about the litany of time.  I’d like you to take your hand.  Look at it.  Close it, and open it.  Close it again.  Open it.  There is a time for taking hold.  There is a time for letting go, and I admire and respect those who know the time and know how to let go and how to take hold.  I admire those who migrate the seasons well.  Anticipate the future.  When they’re ahead of the curve, they transition well, they let go and they take hold.

I’d like to share a personal story.  The pain of letting go.  Every man needs a Deere, a John Deere, and I had mine, at least for a while.  I enjoyed it.  It seemed some summers I spent more time with my Deere, my John Deere, than I did with my dear wife, and yet it got tired.  I didn’t want to pour more money into it.  They’re strong aren’t they?  Tough.  Solid.  But finally, I had to let it go.  It had been in my crawlspace for some time and I had to pump up two tires just to roll it to the curb.  I was sad one day, the first Wednesday of the month, when in Collegedale they’ll pick up anything that you put at the curb.  When the truck came by, the crane came and the pincers were there and they lifted it up and dropped it in the bin.  I should’ve recycled it.  It weighed a lot.  I could have taken it right here to Ooltewah, but it was gone.

As humans we long for the things that last.  We are temporal.  There’s a brief interlude, but we have a sense in our hearts for the eternal, because God has placed eternity in our hearts.  We long for the story with a happy ending and we resonate with those that end, “and they lived happily ever after”.  Every reoccurring spring is God’s whisper.  I’m still with you.  There’s more.  There’s rebirth.  There’s renewal.  There’s new life.

With each passing year it seems that life is more precious.  Winter seems longer and we long for the fresh growth of spring.  The green.  The hint of red.  The redbuds.  The dogwood.  The miracle of life.  I’m in love with a God who I’m spending more time with and seeing more clearly.  Each day I want to see him more clearly and to know him better.

There’s a prayer written by Richard of Chichester in the 13th century of England.  Simple yet profound, and it goes this way.  Oh dear Lord three things I pray.  To see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, and to follow thee more nearly.  If this prayer is the essence of your ultimate hope, you can keep hope alive regardless of the season.

I want to be like Enoch, who walked with God.  He came to see eye to eye with God.  He had the same worldview.  They were working from the same agenda, and over time, their to do list began to overlap and eventually Enoch just walked right into God’s presence.  Into heaven.  I hope you’re seeing that trend in your life.

Is it just me or do you find yourself getting more tender as the years go by?  The tears flowing a little more easily?  To experience a wave of emotion in the face of another’s tragedy?  To feel empathy with the hurts and joys of another and to long for God to intervene and to reclaim earth.

Let me end with this personal story.  Not long ago I was working in my parent’s yard on Ooltewah-Ringgold road.  They need me a little more than they used to, with yard work and things.  In the distance I heard the rauccous horn, the shrill siren, the boisterous sounds of tri-community and the EMS.  Soon they rushed by, the ambulance, the yellow Fire Chief car.  The squad cars.  The fire trucks.  Collegedale’s finest.

The wailing of the sirens in the distance, to me, sounded like the cry of God.  Another emergency.  Another family in crisis.  Does your heart beat in harmony with God’s?  Are you touched by what brings God sorrow?  Are you becoming less callous, more concerned about the welfare of others?  I’d like to think that I’m getting, and that you’re getting, to know him better.  That our worldview is changing.  That we’re becoming more aligned with him.  That we’re becoming more farsighted.  Peering Into the future, longing for what’s just around the corner.  Growing in grace.  God’s characteristics becoming ours.

If the ancient prayer is your ultimate hope, to know him and love him and follow him, you can keep hope alive no matter how life plays out, no matter what season it is.  At the end of the day and at the end of life only three things matter.  Oh dear Lord three things I pray.  To see thee more clearly, to love thee more dearly, to follow thee more nearly, day by day.

Hymn of Praise: #230, All Glory, Laud, and Honor
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:3-9
Hymn of Response: #214, We Have This Hope

Sermon delivered by Paul Smith