HOPE WHICH NEVER DISAPPOINTS

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

Romans 5:1-5

When Paul said that, "faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love," he never implied that we could do without the other two. We know that we can't survive without faith, but we often under estimate the importance of hope.

And yet if we look back over our lives we can see that the prelude to

nearly every fall we've ever taken

was the disappointment of a hope.

When our hope sank

it wasn't long before our faith, and our love, sank with it.

On the other hand, as long as our hearts carry a clear hope,

our faith and the love of God which comes with it

can survive any storm.

The basic ingredient of the life of faith in this world …

is a hope which is never disappointed.

It begins when our hearts first awaken …

to the hope that God does care.

- He will change us.

- We can come out of this hell we're in.

It springs to life when we look up and find the Lamb of God really there,

calling us by name.

"Come - follow me."

And all along the road,

through trial,

through suffering,

through whatever cross we have to carry

or whatever death we have to die,

hope is there

... new every morning.

No matter how many things go wrong,

God-inspired hope keeps leading us on and never disappoints us.

It is only in this inner atmosphere of hope

that the love of God can be shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit.

But while this hope never lies and never lets us down, there is another kind of hope which also rises in our hearts. A hope which creates very attractive pictures in our minds ... better known as fantasies ... and raises our expectations that these desirable things can be ours. How often we pin the whole purpose of our lives on these attractive pictures and make them our hope.

Then one day we wake up bitterly disappointed.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and

that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened,

and they knew that they were naked...

Genesis 3:6-7a

How did Eve see that this tree was good for food and to be desired to make one wise? She saw by means of a hope which mushroomed in her mind under the influence of the Father of Lies. Just looking at the tree filled her with hope ... but what kind of hope? Just looking at the bill board, the centerfold, or the interesting person coming into the room fills us with hope...ah, but what kind of hope?

Then she and her husband ate.

And instead of hope being fulfilled, their eyes were opened

and they knew that they were naked.

For the first time in their lives Adam and Eve experience

shame, fear, disappointment.

There are people who enter into marriage with a hope which is utterly unrealistic

… expecting a fulfillment marriage was never meant to give. And soon the thing turns into a hell on earth

... each mate blaming the other for their disappointment because their coming together was based on a false hope.

We can even attach to Jesus the wrong kind of hope.

John the Baptist did.

John expected Jesus to play a role he was never meant to play.

"Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world."

cried John as he introduced Jesus and stepped back into the shadows. But when Jesus remained the Lamb and kept the Lion aspect of his nature sheathed in mystery, John began to lose hope.

"Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?"

And many of us have been pinning some hopes on Jesus

which simply are not in his gospel.

- We're looking for something from him which is going to put us in

a place of power or prominence.

- We're expecting Jesus to vindicate us before our detractors.

- We're waiting for him to bring our enemies down from

their high places and exalt us in this world.

And when it doesn't happen after years of waiting we lose hope. And when this hope dies, false misleading hope though it was, we begin falling prey to some strange temptations.

One of the clearest examples in scriptures of what happens when our fleshly hopes are destroyed and our hearts give way to a spirit of disappointment is Lot. You'd think Lot would have trembled with awe and fallen on his face in worship after being delivered from Sodom by the skin of his teeth. But Lot's behavior after his rescue is the sure sign of a disappointed heart.

- Lot's wife is gone.

- His possessions are gone.
- His sons-in-law are gone.

So Lot and his two daughters abandon themselves to three temptations that invariably visit a disappointed heart.

Now Lot went up out of Zoar, and dwelt in the hills with his two daughters, for he was afraid to dwell in Zoar; so he dwelt in a cave with his two daughters. And the first-born said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is not a man on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drink wine, and we will lie with him, that we may preserve offspring through our father." So they made their father drink wine that night; and the first-born went in, and lay with her father; he did not know when she lay down or when she arose. And on the next day, the first born said to the younger, "Behold I lay last night with my father; let us make him drink wine tonight also; then you go in and lie with him, that we may preserve offspring through our father." So they made their father drink wine that night also; and the younger arose, and lay with him; and he did not know when she lay down or when she arose.

Thus both the daughters of Lot were with child by their father.

Genesis 19:30-37

1. Lot and his daughters withdrew into a cave. And how often in our

disappointment we head for a cave.

"I'm going to withdraw. I'm going to bury myself in my own thing. I want nothing more to do with all the people who hurt me and rejected me."

2. Then Lot got drunk. His daughters kept filling him with wine and

he didn't object.

"What the heck! Might as well. Everything's let me down."

And so we tend in our disappointment

to escape into a world of unreality…

alcohol, fantasy, some hobby, some foolish obsession.

3. Then they went to bed. A reckless abandoning of themselves to

something unholy ... a pathetic attempt to find relief in the sensual.

And how often the disappointed heart runs to the sensual to nurse its

self-pity and even strike back at God.

"After all, he let this happen to me so why shouldn't I?"

Whenever we find ourselves,

- running for some cave,

- escaping into the unreal,
- plunging into the sensual,

as a way of compensating for our disappointment, we can be sure that

our hearts were fixed on the wrong hope in the first place.

Our Lord never sympathizes with our dejection after our false hopes have been destroyed. Always, he points us firmly to that place where our true hope is...where our hearts ought to be fixed: on himself.

"Go tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.

And blessed is he who takes no offense at me." Matthew 11:4-6

"Get your eyes on me and don't take them off until you see who I am and what I'm doing for you."

.... And he said to them, "What is this conversation which you are holding with each other as you walk?" And they stood still, looking sad. Then one of them, named Cleopas, answered him, "Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?" And he said to them, "What things?" And they said to him, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened. Moreover, some women of our company amazed us. They were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; and they came back saying that they had even seen a vision of angels, who said that he was alive. Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but him they did not see."

And he said to them, "0 foolish men, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?" And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. So they drew near to the village to which they were going. He appeared to be going further, but they constrained him, saying, “Stay with us, for it is toward evening and the day is now far spent." So he went in to stay with them. When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished out of their sight. They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures?"

Luke 24:17-32

The picture of these disciples is a picture of us. They're walking along the road with sad faces. What they had hoped for didn't come to pass. And all the while the real hope ... the hope they failed to take hold of even though he had told them again and again he would die and be raised, was walking at their side. They were feeling sorry for themselves over the loss of a false hope when the real hope, the hope which never disappoints, was so close they could reach out and touch him.

It was necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory, and it was necessary that their false hopes should be dashed so they might fix their hearts on the real hope ... that the love of God might be poured into their hearts through the Holy Spirit.

- If we have suffered disappointment,

- If life itself has been one big disappointment,

- If everything that gave meaning to our lives
has been washed away in a flood of trouble…

It was so that we might have…

our eyes opened, our hearts opened,

to recognize the One who has been

walking by our side

speaking to us

opening to us the scriptures, and…

who wants to fill us with the peace of God.

"0 foolish men and women,

slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken!

Get your hope where it belongs.

Make sure your heart is fixed on the hope which never disappoints."

If secretly I have my hope pinned on some grandiose plan or some fantasy no wonder I'm disappointed. But if I fix my hope on the Lamb himself and set about fulfilling the clear simple calling he has already given me, I'll never be disappointed.

"Lord, will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?

After all, that's where our hope is. That's why we've followed you around these three-and-a-half years...."

"It's not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be my witnesses"

...isn't that enough? To be my witnesses?

Don't let your hope degenerate into speculation or fantasy or vanity.

Fix it on me and get on with being my witnesses as the love of God is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit.

And I promise you, you will never be disappointed.

"Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,

nor has it entered into the heart of man

the things I have prepared

for those who fix their hope on me."