
Today is Easter and our church is beginning a new series called, “Hope Wins.”
In the middle of this crisis we are celebrating the greatest cause of hope ever. Jesus rose from the grave. The most hopeless circumstance of all time gave way to the greatest hope ever!
This is so relevant to faith because Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Faith is born in the incubator of hope. The reality of what God can do and has promised to do brings us inevitably to what God is doing now that I can receive as something done. Faith is where the not yet becomes the already.
This is what happen when the Mary’s went out to the grave that Easter morning. Everyone else stayed away. But hope stirred them to at least go see. As they saw the empty tomb the Bible says they “believed.” After they believed Jesus appeared to them. This describes the journey of hope into faith.
I’m out here today on Easter morning. I had hope that the sun would rise today, so I got up and came. During this time of crisis, in the message I will share today, the word is that if we have enough hope we will win. If we can just see enough light at the end of the tunnel we will get through. The victory or rebuilding of our life begins with getting our hopes up based on the promises of God. The hope of Jesus the Bible says doesn’t appoint. It isn’t a wish it is a certainty that God cannot fail. If Jesus rose we will to.
I love the story I heard of a rooster. A tornado swept through the Kansas farm and utterly destroyed his chicken coop. He was dusty and shaken but not harmed. He saw his chicken coop and it was just a pile of rubble. Determined he got up on the top of the rubble and gave his loudest Cockadoodle Doo. That is hope. You know that coop eventually got rebuilt.
Four lepers in the old Testament demonstrated this to. When all of Jerusalem was in quarantine because they were surrounded by an army that held them in siege. These four were in the worst situation of all. They had the disease and couldn’t even be in the city. They and everyone were seized by something as bad as the soldiers outside it was fear. One of the lepers said something powerful though. He said “Why sit we here and die, let’s go over to the enemy camp and see what happens.” They let hope come in that created faith that something better than death might happen. When they got to the enemy camp they found that all of them had left. All that was there was the spoil they had left behind.
Love,
Dale
To watch a short video on the subject please go to: https://www.facebook.com/PastorDaleWalker/videos/2888112811272431/?modal=admin_todo_tour
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