S1788 Hope and Memory Memory is strong. Hope is stronger. Take away people’s memories and they become anxious. Take away people’s hope and they become terrified. Live for the future.
HOPE AND MEMORY
S-1788
Turn in Bibles to 1 Corinthians 13.
“It is a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.”
My prerogative to change my sermon from the one printed in the sermon handout.
The New Year is a time of hope for the future.
The past year is past. It is over. I want to think about hope for the future.
•SLIDE: 1 CORINTHIANS 13:13: “Now these three remain: faith, HOPE, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
I have heard many messages on love and faith. I have not heard many messages on hope.
Let me illustrate hope.
Hope looks to the future. Memory looks to the past.
ILLUSTRATION: 40th birthday: black balloons or helium filled. Blow out the candles and make a wish. Or, you don’t want to bother?
ILLUSTRATION: child learning to ride bike with training wheels.
Individuals recently asked what they were looking forward to in 2010. Each answer revolved around the theme of Hope.
* “I hope for less special interest politics and more of what is best for the country.”
* “I hope the Afghanistan affair is settled.
* “I’d like to see the economy stabilized.”
* “I hope they balance the federal budget.” That will never happen.
* “I hope the Cardinals win the Super Bowl.” That will never happen. Dallas is going to win.
What are you hoping for in 2010?
A year without sickness?
A new job?
The right person to marry?
A new baby?
A restored relationship with your wayward son or daughter?
•SLIDE: MEMORY IS STRONG. (Like elephant never forgets, elephant is strong.)
•SLIDE: But, HOPE IS STRONGER. (Like big earth mover.)
STUDENT SUICIDE MY FIRST YEAR AT BAYLOR
Remember two things. Deep impression on me.
Exam time: pressure
Article next morning in Baylor Lariat
Eyeballs popped out when he hit the sidewalk.
•SLIDE: Note he left behind “There is absolutely no hope.”
•SLIDE: PEOPLE LIVE ON HOPE, NOT ON MEMORY.
•SLIDE: TAKE AWAY PEOPLE’S MEMORIES AND THEY BECOME ANXIOUS.
TAKE AWAY THEIR HOPES AND THEY BECOME TERRIFIED.
•SLIDE: MEMORY IS STRONG.
•SLIDE: PSALM 77:1-12: “I cried out to the Lord for help. When I was in distress I sought the Lord; at night I stretched out untiring hands and my soul refused to be comforted. . . . I thought about the former days, the years long ago; I remembered my songs in the night. . . .
•SLIDE: Then I thought, ‘to this I will appeal: the years of the right hand of the Most High.’ I will remember the deeds of the Lord; yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago. I will meditate on all your works and consider your mighty deeds.”
What we remember:
•SLIDE: 1. Tragic events –never forget, name some: car wreck, death
Buck Craven: mention Janie, bring tears to her eyes. He never got over her death by drunk driver.
•SLIDE: 2. Sinful events –name some, these go deep: adultery
Stealing dime in 1st grade: bold face lies to teacher, class and mom.
•SLIDE: 3. Embarrassing moments
Pinched their tits or Grandy’s college girl rudeness.
OR, “We are students at UofA. Really enjoyed your sermon today.”
•SLIDE: 4. Celebrative experiences
Fourth birthday, wedding day (best or worst thing I ever did)
•SLIDE: 5. Hopes fulfilled (Sociologists tell us that we remember these best)
Answered prayers; wedding day: 35 years of marriage.
Ricky son-in law: “If mom died would you remarry?”
No, can’t imagine anyone to replace mom.”
Roger to Ricky: “If Bronwyn died, would you remarry?”
Ricky: “Yes, probably.”
Bronwyn’s head shot up! “What, you’d better not. I don’t want you to come into Heaven with another girl on your arm—-unless you marry some one who is not a Christian and goes to Hell!”
•SLIDE: MEMORY IS STRONG.
•SLIDE: BUT, HOPE IS STRONGER.
Turn to the Book of Lamentations: Explain Jeremiah. Lamenting destruction of Jerusalem; canabalism and yet precious statement of hope.
•SLIDE: LAMENTATIONS 3:21-26: “Yet, this I call to mind and therefore I have hope. Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
•SLIDE: I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for Him.’ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
DRAW SLIDE: GRAPH OF PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE
Hope: People look for hope in
l. The Present
2. The Immediate Future (“get a raise soon and take care of my financial problems”)
3. The Distant Future (“when I finish my schooling I can get a good job and begin life)
4. The Next Life (river)
If people can’t find realization of some of their hopes in present, they look to or postpone it to immediate future.
If people can’t find realization of hope in immediate future, postpone to distant future.
If people can’t find realization of hope in distant future, postpone to next life. (Because people can’t live without hope.)
SURVEY IN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS FOUND NO HOPE.
Depressed economy. Many out of work… People moved there 200 years ago and cut down trees and built houses for a fresh new life. Had hope in the present.
Now, no one even bothers to build new house. No hope.
But they didn’t look far enough! If they had looked back in the hollows and valleys into the backwoods on Sunday mornings, they would have seen lots of hope! Postponed Hope for the future. Listen to the singing, “When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound . . . Roll is Called up Yonder…”
•SLIDE: Negro Spirituals are all based on Hope deferred.
Slaves with no hope in the immediate or even the distant future brought their hope of eternal life into the present.
By the way, you know that all the negro spirituals were written on the black keys on the piano? The pentatonic scale. Time of suffering, all their music had a five note scale.
SING: “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen, Nobody knows like Jesus.”
The most famous spiritual song in the world, “Amazing Grace,” was written by John Newton. John Newton was a British Slave trader who heard the singing of the Black African slaves in the holds of the ships on the way to slavery in America. He heard the same five notes arranged in various ways as the slaves sang of their suffering and of their hopes.
When he found Christ he repented of the slave trade and never did it again. He composed the song Amazing Grace to memorialize the loving grace of God in forgiving his sins and saving his soul.
He composed the tune of “Amazing Grace” on the five black notes of the piano as a perpetual memorial of the songs of suffering and hope of he overheard from deep in the holds of the slave trading ships.
•DRAW SLIDE: (write on draw slide) PEOPLE LIVE ON HOPE, NOT ON MEMORY.
(write on draw slide) OUR GOAL IS TO DRAW OUR HOPES FOR THE FUTURE—NOT OUR MEMORIES OF THE PAST—INTO THE PRESENT!
For Example: Cemetery is a symbol of our hope into eternity and life beyond. Moan over memories, or look forward to seeing them again.
See people weep over gravestones: “Momma’s dead. Good times and memories.” They are miserable.
Others at same gravestone, “I will see her again! Leave with a smile.”
Some are chained to the past. Others can bring their hopes of the future into their present and enjoy them now!
Describe Ecclesiastes: Despair of mid-life crisis? old age?
•SLIDE: ECCLESIASTES 7:10: “Do not say, ‘Why were the old days better than these?’ For it is not wise to ask such questions.
Solomon says, “Stop living in past.” Why?
•SLIDE: LIVING IN THE PAST HINDERS HOPE FOR THE FUTURE.
LARRY was a “red necked truck driver” who grew up in abusive foster homes. Alcoholic, heavy smoker: “was not a Christian. Came to singles ministry so insecure he felt like a bug in a jar. Realized that he needed some help and came to Jerry for counseling and found Christ and life was changed.
•SLIDE: “What I realize is that I have been closing the door to my future and crawling back into my past. What I need to do is close the door to my past and run into my future.”
•SLIDE: THE SACRED HEART CATHOLIC CHURCH is located in Rowlett, Texas just outside of Dallas. For many years old highway 67 ran right between all the businesses on main street.
A number of years ago the Texas Highway Department built a newer highway and rerouted the highway right behind the businesses. It was an easy matter to turn the stock around, build a porch at the back and make a new entrance. They were open for business on the new highway.
All except the Sacred Heart Church. They refused to move the altar to the other end of the building and make a new entrance: “We have worshipped at that altar for the past 30 years and we are not about to change it now!”
Some times it takes years to do in church what you can do at a business in 2 days.
You can drive down highway 67 and see all the businesses open for business—but all you can see is the back wall of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church. The businesses thrived, but the church languished.
Several years later a tornado blew through Rowlett and knocked the church off its foundation. The more spiritual ones wondered aloud if this might be a sign from God. They got some heavy equipment and carefully turned the church around on its foundation!
The Sacred Heart Church grew and flourished. In fact, they recently relocated to a beautiful location overlooking Lake Ray Hubbard. They still use the turned around building as a wedding chapel.
•SLIDE: MEMORY IS STRONG.
•SLIDE: But, HOPE IS STRONGER.
•SLIDES: PHILIPPIANS 3:12-14: “Not that I have already attained all this, or have already been made perfect. . . . But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining for what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
•SLIDE: A member of the Peace Corps tells of meeting a woman in the backwoods of Sierra Leone. She was from Oregon, where she taught at the University. She was now in the Peace Corps, living in a two-room dirt floor cottage with no electricity or running water and teaching nutrition to the women of the village. I asked her how she happened to choose this life, and she responded,
“I am divorced. My children have all left home, and I decided that I had to choose between having a mid-life crisis and a mid-life adventure. I chose the adventure.”
Solomon says that living in the past is not good. Get on with the rest of your life.
•SLIDE: 95% OF THE BIBLE VERSES ABOUT HOPE REFER TO HEAVEN AND ETERNAL LIFE!
•SLIDE: COLOSSIANS 1:5: “Faith and love spring from the HOPE that is stored up for you in heaven and that you have already heard about in the gospel that has come to you.”
•SLIDE: TITUS 1:2: “Faith and knowledge rest on the HOPE of eternal life, which God who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time.”
•SLIDE: 1 JOHN 3:2-3: “But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. . . . Everyone who has this HOPE in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.”
Why do all the Bible verses about hope focus on Heaven and eternal life?
•SLIDE: AIM AT HEAVEN AND WE WILL GET EARTH “THROWN IN.” IF WE AIM AT THE EARTH WE WILL GET NOTHING.
When our minds are focused on eternity it affects everything we do: who we talk to, how we spend our money, our values, our interests, our behavior.
When we live with the hope that life does not end at death, our outlook on everything is affected.
When our minds are focused on eternity, no matter what is happening, we always have something to look forward to.
•SLIDE: WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY STRUGGLING TO FIND HOPE.
Expressing a widely popular belief among intellectuals –negative existentialism, Jean Paul Sarte said,
•SLIDE: “Man can count on one but himself. He is alone, abandoned on earth in the mist of his infinite responsibilities,. With out hope, with no other aim than the on he sets for himself, with no other destiny than the one he forges for himself on this earth.”
•SLIDE: Many people in our culture have no hope of eternal life beyond the river! They are frozen on the cliff!
Person Mountain Climbing. Gets stuck. No way up or down. What do they do? Panic and freeze! Grab on to any bit of outcropping that brings security!
This explains grasping for materialism. If you have no hope of going forward, you will grab for anything.
Story of Man at MVD: 80 year old buys $80,000 car. Clerk was incredulous.
People out there are afraid and insecure. Most tense society that has ever lived. More aspirin, etc because we are grasping for flimsies.
WE CHRISTIANS, OF ALL PEOPLE, HAVE THE MESSAGE OF HOPE!
We are the people of the Open Tomb. We are the Easter People. We are the people of Hope.
Help people find a certain and reliable future in the Kingdom both now and in the future.
How do we help people who are frozen on the cliff?
Don’t get above them and shout where the footholds are! You have to come along side of them: “Move left foot here… right foot here…”
•SLIDE: I wept through one of the most beautiful stories I have ever seen.
Have you ever seen “A Little Princess?”
It is the story of a little nine year old British girl named Sara who lives with her British military father in India before WWI. Sara’s mother is dead and her father is raising her.
He father is always encouraging her. Continually tells her she is a little princess. Great imagination. Wonderful story teller.
Before her Dad goes off to war he takes her to a School for girls that her mother attended when she was a little girl.
Lonely time but filled with imagination and hope. Children love her imaginative story telling. She tells them they are all princesses. Befriends a little black servant girl named Becky that no one can talk to who lives in the attic.
Then word comes that her father has been killed. British government confiscates all his property. Sara is left penniless. Wicked headmistress takes all of her possessions. Forced to move up to the attic with Becky and become a servant. Cold, lonely, despair.
Finally, Becky convinces her to tell stories of India. Talks about how much she would like to be home.
Cold: Talk about how warm it is in India.
Hungry: they imagine feasting on sausages and muffins.
Hope springs again in her heart.
Wicked headmistress hates Sara for the lack of income. Comes to torment her: “Don’t tell me you still fancy yourself a princess. Look around you, you are not a princess—or better yet, look in the mirror!”
Sara is startled, and them replies:
•SLIDE: “I am a princess. All girls are. Even if they live in tiny attics. Even if they dress in rags. Even if they aren’t pretty. Even if they aren’t smart or young. They are still princesses. All of us. Didn’t your father ever tell you you were a princess? Didn’t he? Didn’t he?
I don’t know exactly where you are in life, but I do know this, if you have surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, you are a prince or princess in the eyes of Father God in heaven. We have an eternal hope as children of God.
•SLIDE: 1 CORINTHIANS 13:13: “Now these three remain: faith, HOPE, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
Of course, the greatest is love—but hope is not far behind.
•SLIDE: MEMORY IS STRONG.
•SLIDE: HOPE IS STRONGER.