daily Broadcast

Understanding the Power of Hope, Part 1

From the series Living Above Your Circumstances

Are you in need of some hope today? Are life’s ups and downs threatening to take the fight out of you or someone you love? Well, before you throw in the towel, join Chip as he shares how to find hope even in the midst of your darkest times.

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Message Transcript

Key number three is going to be our hope.  And regarding our hope, the question is, “What is our hope based on, or what is it rooted in?” Now, I’ve got a little illustration here, and I want you to examine this with me, okay?  This is a ladder.  This is a wall.  And on the other side of that wall is a stool, and it has a pitcher of water.  And the pitcher of water represents the normal thirst and normal needs that we have.

And it also represents issues in our life that we have to deal with.  And what the apostle Paul told us, in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, and what he’s going to teach us, by way of example, in Philippians, is that there are two places that you can look at life from.

Place number one is from a temporal vantage point called “time.”  And I’m looking at what my needs are and what the issues are, and I can’t see through this wall.  And if what I really need is on the other side of this wall, and I look at it from here, I can look and look and pray and pray, but you know something?  I just keep hitting the wall.  There are things over there that give me hope, but I can’t see them.  And if I can’t see them, if there’s no hope in my marriage, you know what you do?  You quit.  If there’s no hope of walking with God, and you keep struggling with the same sin, and you fail, fail, fail, sooner or later, what do you do?  You quit.

And what the apostle Paul is going to say is, there are two vantage points from which to look at life.  In fact, on the front of your notes, I actually put the definition, from Webster’s, of vantage.  The first definition is, “A position or situation more advantageous than your opponent’s.”  And there’s some application here.  But the second one is “a position that allows a clear, broad view or understanding.”

And what I’m going suggest is, the apostle Paul is going to teach you, and teach me, that there’s another place to look at life.  And you can look at life from this vantage point, on top of this ladder.  This is an eternal perspective.  I can see time, but I can also see eternity.   From here, I can see that which is seen through physical eyes, but from here, I can see not only that which is seen through physical eyes, but that which is seen through spiritual eyes.  And that is real.  I see what’s on the other side.  And I can keep on going, because if the only thing I see is down below the ladder, through a temporal perspective, I don’t have any hope.  I don’t have any hope.

When you get an issue in your life, you need to ask, “Where is my hope?  What is my hope based on?”  Is my hope based on, this marriage is going to look a lot better in six months?  Is my hope based on, I’m making “X” amount of dollars, but I need to make “X” amount of dollars to be happy?  Is my hope based on, I’ve been with this company so long, and I still have this rotten position, and I should be promoted by now?  Is my hope based on, You know something? I saw a guy here, and I know how he feels.  He’s got a rotator cuff, and he tore a bicep muscle?  And you know, there are a lot of us that a lot of our hope and joy is based on being able to hit a tennis ball or hit a golf ball or something to do with our lives and our athleticism.  And if your hope is based on a temporal, what you can do in your physical body, and whether it’s healthy all the time, where are you at?  I mean, you’re bummed out.

See, you can either choose to look at life through a temporal perspective, or you can choose to say, “Now, do I like this arm messed up?  No.  Do I like the struggle in my marriage?  No.  Am I excited about where I’m at financially?  No.  But here’s where my hope is: My hope and satisfaction is not rooted in what is happening in my life today and what I can see.  My hope and my perspective is derived from looking realistically and honestly at what is occurring temporally, but it allows me to see, from an eternal perspective, that is not just pie in the sky.  It is real, it is available, it is promised.”

By the way, here’s what you need to understand about the word hope, because I’m going to keep using it, and it’s never going to click until you get it.  When we use the word hope, in English, we often think of things like, I hope it doesn’t rain. And we use it for wishful thinking.  Or most of us in this town say, “I hope the Falcons win,” or, “I hope I get a raise.”  And so, when you use the word in that fashion, what you’re really saying is, “I am wishfully thinking that something good will happen in the future.”  And there’s nothing wrong with that usage.

That is not the biblical usage of the word.  The word for hope means “The absolute certainty.” In fact, the word for hope in the New Testament, says that our hope is the anchor of our soul.  Our hope, for example, is in the return of Christ.  I’m not wishfully thinking or hoping He might come back someday if what He said is true.  My hope is in, He promised, “I will come back.”  My hope is not that I might get enough strength, on certain days, some day, some way, and God might help me.  My hope is, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.  I don’t hope that, some way, somehow, God is going to provide for the physical, emotional, relational, and spiritual needs of my heart.  My hope is Philippians 4:19: “[But] my God will supply all [my] needs according to His riches and His glory in Christ Jesus.”

So, what I want you to see is, temporally, everything we hope in can vanish.  What you have is a car wreck away, a down economy away, and a shift of circumstances away if your hope is in the present.  If it’s in a person, if it’s in a thing, if it’s in a business, if it’s in a body, if it’s in a gift, if it’s in a relationship, it’s a millisecond away from being here today, gone tomorrow.  And if your life revolves around that hope, no matter how noble – it can be your wife, it can be one of your kids, it can be your ability, it can even be a ministry.  And what do we all know?  It’s an earthquake, tornado, or heart attack away from being here today, gone tomorrow.

And what the apostle Paul is teaching us is, we hold those things loosely, and we learn to look with double vision, a vision to temporal reality.  It’s not pie in the sky; we don’t act like these problems aren’t real.

But we look at our temporal reality, viewed through the dual lens of, this is my life, my body, my circumstances that I’m facing, by the strength and power of God, that I look at them through the lens of what is readily available through the eyes of eternity.

So, in other words, you get a choice, every single day, and I get a choice. You can put it a different way, imagine, if you will, a platform that is built, with a television camera.  Another platform that is built, with another television camera.  That platform is the lens of eternity.  This platform is the lens of time.  Every single day, every situation, you get to make a choice: Do I climb up and look at my life through the lens and the camera of all eternity, or do I get up on this platform and only look at my life through the lens of time?

One will produce some things that will astound others, because you always have hope.  The other will make you like a little cork on the wave of the sea, that, as circumstances go up and down and change, you will be tossed here and tossed there, and be up one moment and sinking the next, because your hope is in a person, a place, a thing, or a something that is simply unable to fulfill the deepest desires.  And, by the way, when you lose hope, you lose it all.  Someone has rightfully said, “Hope is the oxygen of the soul.”  You can live without air – not very long.  Your soul cannot live very long at all without hope.

Now, let’s open, together, and find out the third lesson on perspective from the apostle Paul.  His view of the future. You know his circumstances; he’s in prison.  He has every reason in the world to be discouraged, depressed, it’s not working.  Whatever our circumstances are today, they pale compared to his.  And look at verse 18(b).  Notice his perspective.  He says, “Yes, and I will continue to rejoice.”  Paul’s view of the future – Paul’s view, sitting in a cell, sitting in chains, examining what’s happening.  As he’s sitting here, he has people – Christians – this is what really gets you, isn’t it?  Other Christians filling the leadership vacuum, saying, “You know, if Paul really had a lot of faith, he’d be out here with us. He’s the old leader, and I’m the new leader.”  He’s chained to people.  He’s got a life agenda.

Temporally thinking, when Paul would look through the eyes of what is temporal, here is where his life is right now.  But the apostle Paul is going to teach us, “No, I want you to know that I rejoice because I’m looking at life through a different perspective.”  And let’s find out what it is.  He has two reasons how he can have joy in the midst of this unbelievable, difficult circumstance.

Reason number one: His deliverance is certain.  His deliverance is certain.

Picking it up in verse 19, he says, “For I know that through your prayers and the help given by the Spirit of Jesus Christ, what has happened to me will turn out for my deliverance.  I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now, as always, Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death.”

Now, put a little circle around the word for I know.  And here’s what he’s saying, “I’m in prison, and what I know for certain is that, through two things, your prayers – you guys are praying for me –” And, by the way, this is one of those quick asides on the sovereignty of God and responsibility of man, the apostle Paul, he believes in both of them.  Okay?  He says, “I’m going to be delivered.”

And the word for delivered there, it’s the word salvation, but the root concept of salvation used in the Old Testament is deliverance. Salvation doesn’t always mean being saved from your sin to go to heaven.  It means that there’s a barrier, and the barrier, you make it through the barrier.  So, they were delivered through the Red Sea.  They were delivered out of the hand of the enemy.  And he’s using this as, “What I know is, I’m going to be delivered.  I’m going to come through this somehow.”

And he says, “Number one is the human responsibility.  You are praying for me, and it really makes a difference.  And the power, or empowerment, of the Holy Spirit of God – the Spirit of God is supernaturally, sovereignly doing something in this situation.”  And he says, “I’m certain.”

You put the circle around the word I know.  Two different words in the Greek New Testament for know.  One is a knowledge that comes by way of experience: I know that my wife is going to order strawberry truffle ice cream when we go to Bruster’s.  How do I know that?  I know that by experience, because every time we go to Bruster’s she gets chocolate strawberry truffle ice cream.

Okay, that is not this word.  I know that if I take this pen out of my pocket, that it will drop to the ground.  I know that because there is a certainty called “gravity” that does not change.  I know that as an empirical fact.  It’s true whether I believe it or don’t believe it.  Paul is saying, on the basis of empirical fact – that’s the word – and the facts are, “God uses prayers, and this help given by the Spirit, it’s going to turn out for my deliverance.”

And, by the way, put a little squiggly line under “help given.”  It’s a very interesting word.  The root word came from the original word, in Greece, for the word chorus, an actual singing group.

And they would have these singing groups come, and they had big theaters, and if you were a very rich, wealthy person, it would be your job to bring the chorus, the singing group, and the theatrical production to your city.

And so, this word chorus came to mean “Everything that is necessary” – the money, the provision, the stadium – “everything necessary to put on the whole production.”  And then, later, the word evolved to mean, basically, “Everything that is needed to take care of an issue, that’s what you get.”  And what he’s saying is, “The help given – I know that through your prayers and the Spirit of God, everything I need to make it through this situation is going to be provided for my deliverance.”

And then, he goes on to say, “And I eagerly expect” – put a box around that – “and hope” – because those are two key issues – “that I will in no way be ashamed, but [God will give sufficient grace]” – literally, “all boldness, the ability to speak boldly” – “[to do what He wants me to do, for this purpose], that now, as always, Christ is going to be exalted in my body whether by life or by death.”

Now, you need to understand, his hope, he says, “I eagerly expect.”  Literally, it’s, “According to my eager expectation and hope.”  It’s an unusual word. It’s the eager, intense look, which turns away from everything and everyone, to fix on an object of one’s desire.  In other words, the word picture is this: It’s the picture of a runner in his lane, and the apostle Paul, all this stuff has happened to him – difficult circumstances, physical pain, guy locked onto him.  His life is in the balance, and they’re thinking, Am I going to be executed or not executed?

The problems out there of relationships in the church.  He says, “In the midst of all that, my eager expectation and my focus” – or hope – it’s the picture of a runner in his lane, and as he runs down the lane, he focuses on the tape.  And every other runner and the stadium is a blur.  He hears nothing.  And when he gets close and reaches the tape, it’s a picture of someone who reaches out their chest, and their entire focus is to break through that tape.  And he says, “My eager expectation and my certain hope is that God is going to deliver me. I know I’m going to come through this.  I don’t know how.”

And then, it raises the question, what does he mean by “God’s going to deliver him”?  Well, we have three options.  One, He’s going to deliver him out of a situation, right?  The emperor is going to have a thought come to him, and he’s going to say, “Hmm, the apostle Paul, hey, let’s take him out of prison.  Let’s not kill him.”  That’s option one.  Option two would be, he’s going to be delivered unto God.  Psalm 116 says, “Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of His godly ones.”

Now, we think the worst thing that can ever happen to a person is that they die.  I got news for you.  Around the world, in the third world, they think when you die, you’re going to go to heaven, and it’s actually a plus.  They actually think that. Now, no one is looking to die, but they endure amazing suffering and amazing persecution, with amazing fidelity, because they actually believe heaven is a real place, that Jesus is really there, and it is forever and ever and ever.  And that’s their hope, and it’s certain.  They’re not hoping wishfully. They know for sure that’s going to happen.

So, you can get delivered out of your difficult circumstance.  You can get delivered, worst-case scenario, from a temporal perspective, unto the Lord. Or option three is, you can be delivered through the circumstance.  And that means that the circumstances don’t change, but God gives you something, in the midst of the circumstance, to have the kind of attitude and perspective that everyone is shaking their head, “How do you do that?”

I mean, I have friend right now that I’m asking, “How do you do that?”  He has been married about 56 years.  He has had a wonderful marriage.  His wife recently had surgery. And heart surgery, apparently, I learned from a cardiac specialist, at times, mild strokes occur, and she is beginning to lose her memory.  She can’t carry on much of a conversation anymore.  She can’t cook the meals anymore.  The only thing that she can remember very, very, very clearly is all the old memories.

And now, for the last year or so, I have a friend who goes home, after 56 years of marriage, and talks to someone who the only thing she wants to do is watch old black and white movies and cannot share any of the deep issues of her heart.  He can go into this room and say, “Now, tomorrow, I need to go to the city on a business trip, and I’ll be back.”  And then, he can come back in, after getting dressed, and he can say, “Well, I’ll be seeing you, because I need to take off,” and she can burst into tears and say, “Why are you leaving me?”  “Well, I just told you I need to . . .”  And she didn’t remember.

And I watch him treat her in ways that astound me, with a level of tenderness and a level of concern and a love.  And I’m thinking, I mean, for a few months is one thing.  For years?  And I remember, we’re pretty good friends, I said, “How do you deal with that?”  And with a shrug of his shoulders, he’s a man in his early to mid seventies, has walked with God for many years – and with a shrug of his shoulders, as though, “What don’t you understand, young man?” He said, “We’ve had 54 wonderful years together.  She’s been a loving, faithful wife.  I’m wired for eternity, and is it too much to ask that, in our later years, that I have the privilege of serving, maybe, a part of the shell of my wife’s body, of what she used to be, and get to begin to give back to her some of what she gave to me, in light of all of eternity?”

You see what he was doing? I was saying, “Whoa, present circumstance, temporally, your wife is not very responsive.  You can’t have big talks anymore.  You can’t share your heart.  It must not be very fulfilling.  I bet there are a lot of issues.”  And he says, “Well, candidly, young man, that’s not exactly how I look at it. In light of eternity and in light of the temporal, what we’ve done, in light of what God is doing and what He has promised, it seems to me a very small thing, in the last few years of my life . . .”

And so, God is delivering him through it.  Now, is he praying that his wife’s memory will come back?  Of course.  Is he praying her health will get better?  Of course.  But God delivers unto Himself, God delivers out of things, but what He always promises, He’ll deliver you through whatever you’re in.