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Body: As we have closed or are closing out the Christmas season and moving on into the new year, I would like to speak this morning on carrying a believing HOPE on into 2024 and beyond. The 12th month of each year we think of Christmas, in the midst of all the rush, buying gifts, the tree, the programs and all the other things that go along with the season, sometimes we forget what it is all about. But we as Christians know without a doubt it is about the birth of our risen Savior! Among other things, this season is called by some “the season of HOPE.” Today I want to convince you and me to carry this HOPE, a believing HOPE, throughout 2024 and beyond. The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul. GK Chesterton Maybe this year… walk through the rooms of our lives not looking for flaws, but potential. – Ellen Goodman You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step. - Martin Luther King Jr. Everyone who got where he is had to begin where he was. - Robert Louis Stevenson Pray. This past week the word “hope” kept coming to mind. After all, with a new year we always hope we will be better people and things will get better. But right away the hope I had began to vanish. To name a few reasons, the passing of Kenneth’s mother and Ben. The surgery and rehabilitation of Sadie and the seemingly countless number of loved ones on our prayer list. Then there is the failing economy, the wars, the violence, struggling family members and friends, and the list could go on and on. Everywhere I turned it seemed that “cope” would be the word for the year instead of hope. But then I read the words of an old black preacher, Jessie Winley who said, “My God is not in any trouble at all.” You see, it all depends upon where your hope is placed. “Man can live about forty days without food, about three days without water, about eight minutes without air...but only for one second without hope.” ¯ Hal Lindsey Everyone needs hope. The world would fall apart without it. People would become filled with despair without it. Humanity would be miserable without it. There is no way to fully measure the impact of hope. Hope is our greatest asset during difficult times. Without hope in Christ, we would be lost. What Does Hope Do? Hope shines brightest when the hour is darkest. Hope motivates when discouragement comes. Hope energizes when the body is tired. Hope sweetens while bitterness bites. Hope sings when all melodies are gone. Hope believes when evidence is eliminated. Hope listens for answers when no one is talking. Hope climbs over obstacles when no one is helping. Hope endures hardship when no one is caring. Hope smiles confidently when no one is laughing. Hope reaches for answers when no one is asking. Hope dares to give when no one is sharing. Hope brings the victory when no one is winning. John Maxwell I was really intrigued when I looked at the scripture and in Romans 4:18 there was that word “hope” used in a most unusual way. It says, “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed…” Repeat. God is looking for his children to have a different kind of hope from the world. Ours is to be a believing hope. When God first told Abram that he would have a son and he waited 10 years and nothing happened, Sarai began to think she should help the Lord out. She offered her maid, Hagar, to conceive the child through Abram. Now it has been thirteen years and they have heard nothing more from God. So, is that it? Did Abram and Sarai miss out or misunderstand or mess up? They must have wondered many times why their life seemed muddled and meaningless. Then when Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him. He said, “I am God Almighty,” This is the first time God has introduced Himself this way, as El Shaddai…the all-sufficient one. So, it wouldn’t matter if Abram was nine hundred and ninety-nine, because it’s not about him, it’s about God. “Walk before me and be blameless,” God tells him. And then God says, “I will confirm my covenant between me and you” and He goes on to say “I will” 7 times concerning the fruitfulness of Abram and Sarai and the generations to follow. It is all possible by the name of God, the Almighty. Abram is bowled over by this news. God isn’t finished with him or disgusted with him. He hasn’t missed out on the promise! Abram falls flat on his face in awe before God. Furthermore, God says he will give Abram a new name. The name Abram means “exalted father.” This must have proven to be an embarrassment many times over the years to Abram whenever he met someone new and was forced to introduce himself. “Oh, your name is Abram, exalted father. Congratulations! How many sons do you have?” And the answer was so humiliating…” none.” How he must have hated the question. Now he was the father of one and that was by a servant girl. (Still nothing to be exalted over.) But God is ready to change all of that. In Hebrew God added one letter to Abram’s name, the letter formed by the “H” sound of breathing out. The word for spirit, which means breath, is ruach in Hebrew, which is pronounced by expelling air. God was adding His Spirit, His breath, to Abram and this would make all the difference! The name Abraham means “father of many” and God promised to multiply him greatly so that he would become the father of many nations. “Then God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name.” Sarai means “contentious.” This speaks volumes about the home life of Abram. He may not have lived up to his name around the house yet, but I’ll bet Sarai had lived up to hers! She certainly was contentious instead of content when Abram did exactly what she told him to and slept with her maid servant, Hagar. The years after Ishmaels’s birth had been marked by contention in this household indeed. But by God’s grace Sarai is also given the breath of the Holy Spirit to change her name to Sarah which means, Princess! What a difference! Now Sarah would be honored in her household and loved by her husband and have a son of her own. This kind of happy ending happens only in the realm of the Almighty God. The all-sufficient one. They needed to get a new perspective of who God was and who they were, and it started with a name change….and the fresh breath of God on their lives. Now if we had time this morning, we would follow the whole story there in Genesis chapter 17 and see that God promised that by the same time the next year Sarah would bear a son and they would call him Isaac. The idea seemed impossible. Abraham was 99 and Sarah was way past her child-bearing years. But Gen 18:14 asks, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” And sure enough, one year later Sarah was rocking little Isaac, the child who was promised, and the bloodline through King David all the way to Christ had begun. “Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations just as it had been said to him. “So shall your offspring be.” The term hope is not the same as faith, although they are related. Hope is the desire for something to happen, whereas faith is the firm confidence that something is true, and it will happen. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This is the kind of faith that Abraham had. Hope is future. Faith is now. Faith and hope work together to bring about a desired outcome. To believe God and place our hope wholeheartedly in Him, we must do the same 3 things that Abraham did: 1. Consider not 2. Stagger not 3. Give glory to God Abraham knew his age and the condition of his body and Sarah’s too. But he chose not to **consider** those things but instead to **consider** what God said. He didn’t **stagger** at the idea that Almighty God could overcome any obstacle. He was strengthened in his faith and **gave glory to God**. He was fully persuaded that God would perform His word to him, that he had the power to do what he had promised. The scriptures say in Genesis 15:6 “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Abraham’s obedience wasn’t what made him righteous. It was his belief. He had not followed through with any covenant sign and it was 400 years before the law was given when God said he was credited with righteousness. So, he is found to be the father of all those who down through the centuries have also believed God’s promises. There are people from every tribe and nation on this earth who believe in God and have placed their faith in him to save them. That is how he is the father of many nations, and we are “Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” We are those who believe in the promise of God to reckon to all of us the righteousness that comes through faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Romans 4:25 says that he was “delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.” It is impossible to be good enough long enough to save ourselves through our own righteous acts or obedience. The impossible things are left up to the Almighty God…the God of all possibilities who has promised to justify us freely by his grace. Abraham believed when, from a human point of view, there was no basis for hope at all. The object of Abraham’s faith was God. His faith grew from the consideration of God’s sufficiency. The object of our hope and faith must also be in God. We do not “hope” we will be saved. We believe in the promise that God will save us because he said he would, based upon the sacrifice of Christ. Look at what I Thessalonians 5:23 and 24 tells us: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.” By faith, you and I are blameless in His sight, and therefore welcomed into His eternal presence. The one who calls you is faithful, and He will do the saving… declaring that you are righteous and blameless. Believe in Him. And, yes, put your hope in Him. No matter what is going on in your circumstances right now. Say to yourself as the psalmist did, “Why so downcast, oh my soul put your hope in God.” When money is tight… He said, “I will supply all your needs according to my riches in glory. And “I am the one who giveth thee the ability to get wealth.” When sickness comes…. He said, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” “He sent his word and healed them.” When jobs are lost, remember He said, ” I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.” And it is written, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor his seed begging bread.” You see, ours is not a blind hope or a wish like the world has. We have a firm foundation for placing our faith in a known God who is loving and good and faithful. So, like our father Abraham, against all hope, we in hope believe…. that nothing is too hard for God. Babies come off heart/lung machines and go on to live healthy lives. Jobs are saved …or if lost, a better one is found. Cancer is healed. Hold on to hope. Today is a time for remembrance. It is a time to remember God’s faithfulness, as well as our own mistakes, so that we can learn from them. It is also a time for repentance, to walk a new path, a way that is closer to the kingdom, a time for dedicating ourselves anew to God’s work. It is a time for dreaming, for envisioning, a time for hope, a time for planning. What will the New Year be like? We don’t know. But we do know that it belongs to God. In it He is calling us further into His likeness, further into His kingdom, further into His promises, further into His presence. When folks are lying on you. Praise His name. When the bills are due. Praise His name. He kept you alive in 2023. Praise His name. He will be there in 2024. Praise His name. He wipes tears from your eyes. Praise His name. He lifts heavy burdens. Praise His name. He makes ways out of no way. Praise His name. He died for you. And He died for me. Praise His name. So, my prayer for you this year is from Romans 15:13: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him so that you might overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”
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