The Hope Perspective

There is hope is the name of our brand new series that we're starting this weekend here at Twin Lakes Church. Hey good to have you with us my name is René another one of the pastors here at TLC. If you haven't yet I want to encourage you to go to TLC.org/notes and you'll also find questions that you can use for your own personal reflection or you can put together a little virtual group and you guys can go over these questions as well.

Well check this out Time magazine's latest issue to hit the newsstands this week cover headline Finding Hope a Special Report. What's this all about? What makes finding hope so important right now? Well you know I was on a Zoom video call with several pastors here in California and we were listening to a Stanford doctor last week and he was talking about the COVID curve that we've all seen so much these days but he said we need to be aware that there's also a COVID emotional curve and this arc happens in any time of real crisis like a death or a frightening diagnosis.

About one week in there's an almost manic level of activity as you scramble to adapt you're feeling motivated you're showing initiative but at about four weeks the manic turns depressive it's harder to get up in the morning you're starting to grieve what you lost and to despair how much longer can this go on and this is what is happening right now in our global experience of this coronavirus crisis and that is why emotionally we're at a stage right now where we need hope more than ever and listen hope is not just you know some emotional luxury interesting article a few years ago in the Journal of the American Medical Association it talked about the importance of hope and it summarized several studies showing that patients with hope actually heal faster than patients who feel hopeless they live longer their mental health is better so hope is essential to physical recovery hope is essential it even makes your immune system better.

But they say you need a specific kind of hope now don't miss this effective hope is not just wishful thinking like I hope I win the lottery that's just wishful thinking you know I hope the Raiders win the Super Bowl next year that's just diluted thinking and effective hope is not just an emotion because feelings are inconsistent they come and go so what is effective hope? The experts say it's a perspective stemming from a deeply held worldview.

Now we're gonna explore this a perspective stemming from a deeply held worldview let's talk about perspective just for a second here I you know I love optical illusions in fact I'm going to share some of the daily video Devos this week but here's one example what do you see in this optical illusion most people see an old woman you see her eyes you see her big kind of bulbous nose there you see her frown you see her hair is kind of up in some kind of a towel but flip your perspective 180 degrees and now it's a princess wearing a crown same exact picture you just flipped your perspective and the same exact phenomenon is true of life your perspective changes your perception.

I'm not saying your perspective changes reality I'm saying it changes your perception in this new series there is hope we're gonna look at a story in the Bible every single week of somebody in a seemingly hopeless situation and we're gonna see how they kept their hopes alive it's gonna be a weekly hope infusion but it always comes down to this their perspective so that's the big idea for this series.

So today I want to start the series with a Bible passage that kind of sets up the biblical perspective that you're gonna see coming to life in all the stories in this series the hope perspective as it's laid out in Romans 8:18–28. I cannot overemphasize how important it is for you to really get this if you get this this is gonna make all the difference about how you handle the rest of this coronavirus crisis and how you handle all the other crises that are undoubtedly gonna come up in your life and let me just warn you this is actually totally different from the perspective that a lot of church-going people have about trouble.

So little background the author of these words the Apostle Paul was an expert on suffering listen to his resume he'd been tortured imprisoned left for dead shipwrecked targeted by assassins diseased yet hopeful Paul was not a morbid guy he overflowed with a hope how will you get a peek into how his mind worked in these verses this is from his letter to the Romans ancient Roman Christians living in the city of Rome who are about to be intensely persecuted tortured put to death under Nero and everybody knows what way the wind is blowing here so they need some hope desperately in this moment in history and Paul gives them four truths about suffering that formed the biblical perspective about how to face suffering.

You can think of these as four sides to a frame he's saying when you suffer frame the picture this way and it'll flip 180 degrees the way most people look at suffering so first first side of the frame this is temporary this too shall pass I gotta show you this on Wednesday NPR had an interview with this man Joe Newman now Joe is 107 years old this is a current picture of Joe and Joe's cuddling up here with his fiance Anita and Anita yes his fiance Anita is a hundred so the combined age of the two people in this photograph is 207.

Now why was he on NPR? Well he was five years old during the last pandemic the 1980 the 1918 flu and so the reporter asked him you were five do you have memories of that he said oh yeah I remember the quarantine and everything but he says this outbreak to him I see this is just another problem he says quote over a hundred and seven years I faced a lot of other problems hey living is a problem you can only do what you need to do to handle the problem that's in front of you at this moment and this moment it's a virus but you'll always have some problem so do what you can today and then just hope for another day tomorrow that's actually very biblical.

And then in the interview his fiance says and now I think it's time for our nap well Paul really is saying something very similar living is a series of problems but this is temporary Romans 8 starting in verse 18 he says I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us now the word consider there is key in the Greek that literally means calculate or analyze it's actually the word from which we get our word computer it means do the math Paul saying you know what I did the math and our present sufferings aren't worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

You know mother Teresa had a famous line she had seen a lot of suffering and listen to this she said compared to all the glories of heaven all our suffering here on earth will feel like one night in a bad hotel I love that and Paul would agree he says for all creation is waiting eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children really are.

Now it's like Paul stops at this point in his letter and he goes oh wait a minute maybe you Romans actually don't know what I'm talking about so in the next eight verses he kind of explains or summarizes the biblical worldview about suffering to these Romans and this is kind of kind of cliff notes on the Bible he says point to the world as we know it now is broken the world is broken why do we have so much suffering big perspective verse 20 against its will all creation was subjected to God's curse.

Now let me stop there God's curse what does that mean? It's not like God did some Harry Potter like curse with his magic God wand it just means that sin our sin weakened all of creation like a disease it's kind of like this God created the world perfect according to the Bible but way back when when humans first rebelled against God and sinned it brought a curse on the world and God's perfect creation cracked and now it doesn't work right now we live in a beautiful yet broken world although we can enjoy God's beauty and I hope you do flowers and forests and oceans all over they're all so beautiful yet they're all subject to death and decay because we live in a broken world.

Another translation puts it this way all creation is in bondage to decay flowers wilt forests don't last you know why your back aches every time you get up in the morning if you're over 40 it's because you're in bondage to decay you know why you need glasses to read if you're over 40 or 50 because you're in bondage to decay all of us news flaps were in bondage to decay because sin entered the world and everything's been upside down ever since.

Now why is this point such an important part of the Christian perspective? Listen because it means suffering is not always directly your fault and suffering is not always directly God's punishment regardless of what hellfire and brimstone preachers might preach you know I love those old Calvin and Hobbes comments do you love Calvin Hobbes? I do but there's a great one where Hobbes is talking to Calvin and he says you think there's a God and Calvin thinks for a minute and then says well somebody's out to get me.

You ever think that when bad things happen God's out to get me? God's mad at me or maybe somehow I messed up and I deserve this the point Paul's making here is no God's not out to get you and you're not going through suffering because like you haven't prayed hard enough or gone to church enough or something like that we just live in a broken world bad stuff happens sometimes these epidemics as epidemiologists are telling us they are bound to circulate occasionally you didn't do anything bad to call this upon yourself they're just part of life on this broken planet but here's the good news number three healing is promised God has a plan and really the whole Bible is about God's plan to reverse the curse.

Rest of the verse but with eager hope the creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay for we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth up to the present time.

It's interesting the word groaning appears several times in this little passage here it says all creation groans the very next verse says and we believers also groan this is super important Paul is not some relentlessly upbeat you know annoying hey always look on the bright side kind of a guy some people think that's the message of Christianity always look on the bright side never be down and then when they feel down they feel like I'm a bad Christian Paul saying no no no life is hard on this earth even for we believers we also groan even though we have the Holy Spirit in us as a foretaste of future glory he's saying hey you can be a believer you can have the spirit and you can still get down you can still grieve because we know it's not right we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering and he says that's okay to grieve because underneath even grief we have hope.

We too wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children including the new bodies that he has promised us new bodies like Jesus Christ had at his resurrection like we looked about just last weekend at Easter.

Now this is so cool don't miss this this future glory that he talks about this is not gonna be a spectator sport it's not like you and I are gonna sit up in heaven and some cosmic grandstand and watch something beautiful unfold in the universe that God is doing in which you actually have no part no you're not gonna be a spectator you're going to be part of it.

CS Lewis who wrote the Chronicles of Narnia put it like this we are to shine as the Sun when we see a sunrise or a beautiful forest now we do not nearly want to see beauty even though God knows even that is bounty enough he says we want something else which can hardly be put into words to be united with the beauty we see to pass into it to receive it into ourselves to bathe in it to become part of it and one day that door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last and we will be restored and the earth will be restored there'll be a new heaven and a new earth and all disease and death and suffering will be no more.

Now check this out Paul says we were given this hope when we were saved watch this if we already have something we don't need to hope for it but if we look forward to something we don't yet have we must wait patiently and confidently what's he saying he's saying this this this future event the resurrection and and the new heavens and the new earth this is part of the package of your salvation we were given this hope when we were saved in other words it's a done deal you don't have to do anything more to deserve it to earn your way into that new heaven and new earth when you were saved you received it.

Let me ask you this have you ever felt like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders when you think about how your sins have been forgiven? I have. Have you ever felt yourself drawn in love to Jesus you ever felt your heart get uplifted during worship? Paul saying just as surely as you have that part of your salvation you will have this part you will be resurrected.

Okay now listen if you've been sort of distracted up until now I really want you to hone in on like the next two minutes what you choose to believe is ahead for you in your future makes such a difference as to how you live now let me tell you a true story have you heard of the town of Flagstaff Maine probably not because it was wiped off the map in the 1940s the state of Maine decided to build a dam at the end of the valley and they told the people here your whole town is gonna be underwater in 20 years.

Now at the time Flagstaff was a lovingly maintained New England village with tidy homes and cute shops and the state even said we're gonna buy all of your homes all right so we'll own them through eminent domain but you can live in them mortgage-free rent-free for at least 20 years because that's how long it's gonna take for the dam to get built.

Now you'd think wow sweet deal right well a reporter visited the town where he had grown up just one year after the announcement took these photographs said it was almost unrecognizable it had fallen to pieces even though there were still two decades before the dam would be finished all repairs had stopped broken windows weren't fixed litter wasn't picked up yards were overgrown and he wrote this great summary line to the story where there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present.

Where there is no faith in the future there is no power in the present all they had to look forward to was destruction and that's what it's like to think of your future as hopeless what happens is you lapse into despair and disrepair but that's not what you and I have ahead for us your perspective is that healing is coming we're not ending up underwater we're ending up emerging from the deep into newness of life and when you believe that when you look at life from that perspective you're not only going to be more hopeful you're going to be more active you're not only not going to have despair you're not going to have disrepair you're going to fix those broken windows you're going to help people who need help and this is why you and I need to keep preaching the gospel to ourselves every day because part of the gospel is not just your sins are forgiven it's not just you're saved now it's that you are given this hope of eternal life and of course that begs the question am I saved?

Well Paul has just finished seven chapters in the book of Romans explaining the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ is free and what do you do with a free gift you don't earn a free gift you simply receive it you just say thank you Lord and you accept it we'll get back to that in a minute but first the fourth and final side of the frame healing is promised but in the meantime every day God is working God is working right now how a couple of ways Paul mentions here verse 26 and the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness and then he gives an example for example we don't know how to pray what God wants us to pray for but the Holy Spirit prays for us.

Have you ever been in a situation where there is so much heartache that you don't even know how to pray? I'll confess to you as a pastor I've been at that place more than once where somebody's really sick somebody's dying and you don't even know how to pray anymore in fact there's times you're not even sure what you believe anymore you're not even sure that there is any hope because if you're like me you start to pray say for healing and you're like God I've asked 20 times for this already and why am I asking for this again why am I asking for this person to be healed again when you didn't answer this prayer before and you didn't keep her well to begin with I don't know how to pray for this I don't even know how to think about this and you kind of feel like a bad Christian for even having those thoughts but what this verse is about and this should be such a great comfort for you and me is God says you're not being a bad Christian when you feel like that I'll pray for you the Holy Spirit prays for us when we just groan with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

God saying I want you to know this in those moments when you feel like maybe you don't believe in me anymore I'm praying for you God says in those moments where you feel like you may have lost faith in me I am interceding for you that's powerful and the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will what this is saying is God's not waiting for you to use the right prayer formula before he's gonna answer your prayers up didn't say in Jesus name amen I'm not listening no you know I know a woman here at TLC who struggled with severe postpartum depression after one of her babies was born it was bad and she says for a year she couldn't think straight she definitely didn't know what she believed anymore she couldn't pray so this she said for a year René this was my prayer help help help help help help help help one word repeated over and over and over again help but she says I knew God got it and you know what he did help and she slowly came out of that and she says she learned so much about herself about life about God during that time.

And that brings me to our final verse one of the greatest verses in the whole Bible Romans 8:28 and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose just walk through this may be familiar to you if it's not if you never have memorized the Bible verse before memorize this one this week and quote it to yourself every day this is beautiful why don't we walk through it together it says and we know Paul's going I'm telling you I know I've lived long enough to know I've read the Hebrew Scriptures enough to know I've experienced this again and again in my own life to know and here's what I know that in all things really all things even that mistake even that death even that disease even that divorce yes all things in all things he works in suffering he works enjoy he works in pain he works when things work out he works when things don't seem to work out he works God works he works he's the hero of the story he's the one who's working he's the one who makes it happen he's the one who turns it around he's the artist he's the Potter we're just the canvas for his artistry we're the clay.

In other words we don't have to understand how or when he's gonna pull this off because God works for the good all things for good that's where all things end up good now he doesn't say all things are good Paul's not the guy at the party going hey it's all good man it's because it's not all good some things are very bad yeah God takes even the bad things and uses them for the good of those who love him who have been called according to his purpose not my purpose not your purpose we don't always get what we want but his purpose will never be thwarted not even by a pandemic.

How do I know think of the icon of our faith the cross has it ever occurred to you how bizarre it is for a Roman instrument of torture to be the icon of our faith haven't you ever wished that kind of the the international ancient icon of Christianity was like a flower or a Hawaiian Beach sunset or something why did it have to be a cross because this is a symbol that God took the worst thing ever and turned it into the best thing ever God said his son Jesus Christ to earth and Jesus died on a Roman cross but what he did on the cross was take the penalty of our sin on himself so we can have pardon for the past power in the present promise for the future and then he rose again as a preview of our hope.

I mean for the cross to turn into a symbol of hope man talk about flipping the script talk about a plot twist but that just proves this point there is nothing nothing that God cannot turn into gold so think back on this amazing passage God says I know it's hard to get perspective on this it's hard to connect the dots when you're this close to it but he says my child this is temporary and this is all happening because you were born into a world that is broken where bad stuff just happens sometimes but healing is promised I'm gonna fix it all and in the meantime I am always active always working to bring good even out of the bad and when you don't think you've got faith anymore to believe this and you groan I'm praying for you that is the hope perspective and you're gonna see in this series that perspective changes everything.

Now I'm gonna close with something that recently brought this home for me in a very personal way last month my cousin sent me an old home movie and there were about 30 seconds of it I'd never seen before it's this movie of me and my little sister Heidi and my mom and my aunt Pia and this was taken pretty much right after my father's funeral I've mentioned to many of you how when I was about four my dad died at age 36 of cancer and seeing this brought it all back this was my little world back then but now with that in mind I want to read you something that my mom wrote later that same year she was only 34 herself and she was a widow with those two little kids you just saw in that movie and she wrote this little poem that I want to share with you and you know what's interesting is she never showed this to me I found this in some papers after she died tucked into one of her daily devotional books but it was dated winter of 1965 the year my father died.

She wrote when my husband died I cried out to God I am so lonely you took my very dearest my best friend my lover my husband the father of my children just take me too and then Jesus said I know your pain I too shed tears I too was separated from my father and I did it all for you now give me your sorrows your pain your fears and I will carry them for you and I will also be your husband and father to your children and something else I will give you my peace a peace the world does not understand because they don't know me take my hand and we will walk together believe in me.

I want to tell you you may not know what to make of all this Christianity stuff like is it true and and how can I know that that perspective you just laid out is is really true well I saw it from the age of four I watched my mother frame her suffering with this perspective and I saw her walk together with Jesus and you know what else I know Jesus is here with you today and times are tough right now but he is saying to you take my hand and we will walk together believe in me that's all you have to do it really is that simple.

So would you like to take his hand right now? Well let's come to him in prayer together would you just bow your head wherever you're at and close your eyes as a symbol of humility before God and join me in prayer Lord I really do pray that we would all turn to you in this moment and now you pray if it reflects where your heart is coming from say dear Jesus Christ today I'm choosing to take your hand so we will walk together I believe in you help me to remember this is temporary the pain of this broken world is not going to be forever healing is promised and you are always working and God be always working through me help me to reach out with your love to those who are hurting around me and Lord we want to pray for those on the front lines of this crisis give them strength work through them and we're talking about doctors nurses the first responders firefighters and emergency responders and law enforcement we pray for the researchers for the scientists and God of course we pray for the victims and their families those recently unemployed those in financial crisis God give them your strength and help us to help them help us all stay together and help one another during this crisis in the name of Jesus amen.