Pastor Dan Eddy
Isaiah 64:1-9
Hopes
dashed – Real Hope restored
11-27-11
I.
Introduction…Fill
in the blank
This
morning I want you to fill in this blank…
“I
hope for _______________.” Now fill in the blank. Let me write them down. What
do you hope for?
You
hope for:
Healing, peace, grace, safe travels, strength,
mercy, snow (?)
Let’s
be more specific. What about a thinner
body, more members here at CLC, better grades in school, more money, a better marriage, kinder
people, your football team winning.
Did you notice some of the
hopes are in yourself; other hopes are in others.
How often are your hopes
in life really realized?
How many say 9 out of 10?
How many 5 out of 10; Anybody want to admit 1 out of
10?
It’s easy to lose hope, isn’t it? Our good actions
can be meant with apathy, evil, or worse yet no response.
Are your hopes realistic?
Where are you putting your
hope?
Are your hopes expressed
as “I hope in your word” as we spoke
from Psalm 119 verse 114 just a few moments ago.
II.
Looking for real hope
Take our Old Testament
reading from Isaiah 64:1-9. This chapter comes at the end of the book, the
hope-filled part. Here the prophet is talking about a very bright future; a
hope in which the Israelites will be liberated from Babylonian slavery and ultimately
at the End of time.
In fact if you think about
it, hope is always based on the future. You can’t hope for the past…it’s gone.
And you’re living in the present. Hopes are in the future. Sometimes we will
base hope on the past. For examples, if the Packers are 11 and 0, (the only
undefeated team in the NFL) it realistic to hope that they will win next Sunday
against the Giants. Do you have that same hope for New England winning today against
The Israelites in Isaiah’s
day were hoping for a theophany like their ancestors
had on
They wanted a hope of
God’s presence so certain that the Gentiles would have no doubts the Lord is
the only God and they would come to repentance and put their faith in Him. Don’t
you hope for something like that with your unbelieving friends? That Jesus
would knock on their door…give them an NCIS Gibbs slap up side the head and
then they would finally believe.
But real hope is an anticipation and expectation
of what the Lord will do for us based on what He has already done. (Repeat)
Sounds
good, but you see here’s the problem. Trusting in God is not having Him act the
exact same way every time something happens. So if I had money problems and I
prayed for more money or income and the Lord provided…then real hope is not in
the future if I have money problems to just pray and wham the Lord will provide
LIKE He
did before. Or if I
got ill and He healed me quickly, then the next time to expect that.
You see
that’s where we get in trouble with hope and with God…when we put such
specifics expectations on Him…that if He doesn’t meet them…well there’s then why
should I put my hope in Him at all.
And
the key to living with real hope is to expect the unexpected with our Lord,
knowing that what we don’t know won’t hurt us and that He will love you in
unexpected ways.
Look
at verse 3: “When
you (meaning the Lord) did awesome things that we did not look for, you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.” The sense from the text is that
Isaiah’s ancestors freed from Egyptian slavery really weren’t expecting God to act like this…because
they didn’t really understand how powerful He really was, even though He drowned
Pharaoh’s entire army in
The
prophet’s point is to expect God to always act in that specific way (the
quaking mountains) would be trusting in false hope. Expecting God to be present
in their lives…to love them…to care for them…that’s where they needed to put
their hope.
The
Lord acts for those who wait on Him…who knows He will care for them…but not
demand the way He should act. Is that you?
Real hope is an anticipation and expectation
of what the Lord will do for us based on what He has already done.
Sin
has a way of changing that definition. “Real hope is how I want the Lord to act based on
the way I think He should act in my life.” And when we believe that…then verse 5 won’t come true. “You
(God) meet him who joyfully works righteousness those who remember you in your
ways.”
Sin
has a way of sapping our righteousness and the joy that goes along with it.
That’s
where congregations get grumpy pastors, whiney members, as the virus of apathy
abounds. That’s when people don’t see God’s Word connecting to their lives. That’s
when prayer lives dry up. We may see hope in addictive pleasurable activities,
technology, work, family, Facebook, but not in Jesus. Our good deeds as black
as this shirt…our faith becomes as brittle as the dry fall leaves outside.
Then
we begin to put our hope in the good deals we got on Black Friday rather than
putting our hope in one day seeing our Savior face-to-face who died on a different
Black Friday, making a deal with His Heavenly Father to secure a certain hope
for your eternal life.
III.
Looking at how Jesus lived hope for your sake
Did Jesus ever
lose hope when He walked the Earth? Did he ever lose hope with His disciples? Did
he ever lose hope with His followers? Did you ever lose hope for you? No. Never.
Jesus was
omniscient as He walked the Earth; He is both the Son of God and the Son of
Man. But, He chose not to use His Divine
attributes most of His life here in this world. Jesus lived in a State of
Jesus lived
true hope even though He lost with foster father before age 30. Jesus lived
true hope even though His half brothers and sister didn’t believe He was the
Messiah, before His crucifixion.
Jesus lived
true Hope even though His Disciples didn’t listen well to His Word and others
intentionally twisted His teachings. But He never lost hope even when He was
beaten, spat upon when He was dying for you. In fact when God His Father
rejected Him at the cross…in what appeared like a moment of utter hopelessness
for the human race…Jesus never lost hope for you. Why? Because He knew His
Father’s will was that you would be saved. God’s hope for you was shown when He
raised His son from the dead.
If Jesus
didn’t have hope for you…He wouldn’t have done any of that. He wouldn’t have
wasted His time. If Jesus did not have hope for you…He would have never
ascended into Heaven and sent His Holy Spirit to descend on the Disciples and
give birth to the Church on that famous Pentecost to bring you in as His child
through baptism.
It’s in Jesus’
journey on Earth 2000 years ago we see hope in our lives today. God’s Word
tells you of Christ’s actions from the past to give you hope everyday in the
journeys you face everyday in life.
But you have
to be looking for them through the cross…or life will seem like a series of
random events with little meaning or relevance for your life. Hope is not
always happiness but it is the certainty of Christ’s love for you as shown this
morning in His supper with His real body and true blood.
If you don't put your hope in Jesus you will many times be quite
disappointed because you many time don’t live up to your own expectations and
others may not live up to your expectations, and life will be constant,
senseless struggle.
Real hope is an
anticipation and expectation of what the Lord will do for you based on what He
has already done from the Cross and grave, and to you by His Word that
generated faith to believe.
It's a
hope that says that even though we don't know what's behind the curtain and
even though what we're facing now is not pretty…our hope is really in that what
we don't see, trusting we will be alright because God is behind the veil and He
will not let us fall no matter how bad things look. That's real hope. That’s
genuine faith…in trusting in God for what you can’t see ahead.
And a
veiled God can bring about repentance as verse 5 so poetically says: “For you have hidden
your face from us, and have made us melt in the hand of our iniquities.”
The
Lord is here this morning to take your false hopes in life and let them go and
give you again the real hope of His forgiveness, where He is the beautiful
potter and we are clay, and you are the beautiful work of His Hand.
IV.
Seeing real hope in your lives
This morning I have several envelopes here. These are prayer
requests many of you wrote down several months ago and sealed them in an envelope.
I have kept them safe in my office. My guess is there are a lot of hopes
expressed in these prayers. I would like to give them back to you at the end of
the service and ask you if your hopes were dashed or when you read them if
God’s proclaimed Word this morning has restored you to the real hope you have
in Christ Jesus. I look forward to knowing.
Around
1834 Edwin Mote wrote the lyrics to our Sermon Hymn for this morning, “My hope is built on nothing
less.” When he had
finished writing the first four verses of the hymn he ran into a fellow church
member whose wife was very ill. He asked Mote to go see her. His friend Mr.
King said normally he would sing a hymn to his wife, read a portion of
Scripture and engage in prayer before coming to Church, but for the life of him
he couldn’t find his hymnal. Mote said he has some verses in his pocket. They were the lyrics to this hymn. So he sang
them to her:
When
darkness seems to hide His face,
I rest on His unchanging grace.
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.
His
oath, His covenant, His blood,
Support me in the whelming flood.
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my Hope and Stay.
On Christ the solid Rock I stand,;
All other ground is sinking sand.
Mrs.
King’s enjoyed these words so much she asked if she could have a copy of them.
Mote visited her every day until she passed away not quite a week later.
Real hope is an anticipation and expectation of what the Lord will do for
you based on what He has already done through Jesus Christ.
God’s
blessings as you discover or rediscover true and certain hope as you journey in
your faith to the destination of eternal life. Amen.