Open
Review
·
2012 was a year greater than I had hoped for…
o We
saw some great stuff happen in my family’s life and in the church.
o We
had 3 powerful conferences with fresh revelation.
o That
revelation expanded our hope through the themes of the cross, our new life in
Christ, grace and our revival of righteousness.
o Crescendo
has left us hopeful that everything will get bigger & better.
o We
hope all of this has left each of us with significant “breakthroughs” in our
lives!
·
During the Breakthrough series…
o We
started with a ratcheting up of our expectation thru this season.
o This
then leads to breakthroughs in faith, generosity, love and joy!
·
Today, we want to talk about a breakthrough of the hope we are already experiencing!
o How
did hope breakthrough IN US with the birth of Christ?
o And
how does hope break THROUGH US every day?
Prayer & Welcome
Set
up the clip from Shawshank Redemption
I
want to start this morning with a short movie clip. The main character (Andy)
gets in trouble for playing music (a Mozart record) over the loud speakers of
Shawshank prison. After 2 weeks in solitary confinement, Andy (Tim Robbins’
character) is meeting with his friends for lunch. During their conversation,
Andy is trying to explain the emotions of his prison sentence to Red (Morgan
Freeman) who has been in prison now since he was a teenager. Needless to say,
they view life from 2 very different perspectives…
·
Tim Robbins (Andy): I had Mr. Mozart to keep me company… it was
in here (mind) and in here (heart)… that’s the beauty of music, they can’t get
that from you… haven’t you ever felt that way about music?!
·
Morgan Freeman (Red): I played a mean harmonica as a younger man…
lost interest in it though… didn’t make much sense in here.
·
Andy: Here’s where it makes the most sense? You need it so you don’t forget.
·
Red: Forget?
·
Andy: Forget that there are places in the world that aren’t made out of
stone. That there’s something inside that they can’t get to… that they can’t
touch… that’s yours.
·
Red: What are you talking about?
·
Andy: Hope.
·
Red: Hope… Let me tell you something my friend. Hope is a dangerous thing.
Hope can drive a man insane. It’s got no use on the inside. You’d better get
used to that idea.
Set
up the dilemma:
·
Hope is a dangerous thing because it’s a scary
thing.
·
Personalize it in my life…
o Never
more real than after my first semester at LCCollege.
§ Lonely
- Put more excitement in the community than Christ.
§ Excitement
of new birth was wearing out and questions came.
§ Had
to search to find David’s (Psalmist heart) mindset.
o It
takes a tremendous amount of trust in God to hope in something…
·
Maybe in your life (or your family’s) the hopes
you’ve had have been dashed to pieces.
·
Maybe it’s hard to think of something you can
hope in that won’t disappoint you… as sometimes jobs, futures, relationships,
dreams have in some way fallen short of what we’ve expected.
·
Maybe the world around us, filled with tragedy,
has left us bitter towards hope… and in fact we are hopeless.
·
We find ourselves as Morgan Freeman’s (Red)
character did…
o Jaded
toward hope.
o Not
understanding it.
o Telling
ourselves that life “is at it is” and there’s no hope for change.
o Or
even worse, lying to ourselves that hope has no place in our present situation…
that the only point for hope is in the next life and there’s not hope for
today.
·
We find ourselves as Red did: “used to” our prison.
Today,
we want to see hope
breakthrough in your hearts. For us to understand…
·
That hope has come to earth.
·
That hope is an important part of who we are.
·
And even more, that hope’s home is in YOU!
Body
I
think that most of us want to start out the new year hopeful. For me…
·
I am hopeful that our family will be healthy.
·
I am hopeful that we will be provided for.
·
I am hopeful that we will stop eating ice cream
and lose a few pounds.
·
I am hopeful that we will read more books and
watch TV less.
·
I am hopeful that God will finally move my hair
from my chin to the top of my head.
·
New year’s resolutions are all about hope that
life will be different this year.
In
the church, I get hopeful for the new year.
·
I hope that our plans & programs will honor
God.
·
I hope that our church family will grow closer
together.
·
I hope that lives will be changed.
·
I hope that Holy Spirit will show up in
everything we do.
But I don’t have to wait for hope!
…He already came in the person of Jesus Christ.
When
Jesus came to earth as an infant man, He changed everything.
·
1
Timothy 1:1 – Jesus Christ is our hope!
·
He became Hope. He became the hope of the world.
·
For 100s of years, the world was watching and
waiting for the messiah to come… to change darkness to light… to change bondage
into freedom.
·
In the person of Jesus, that embodiment of hope
was realized.
·
Hope is a dangerous thing because of
Jesus’ breakthrough into humanity… not because of the breakthrough of political
freedom, but Jesus’ breakthrough was
o dangerous
to the darkness
o dangerous
to the devil’s schemes
o dangerous
because light always conquers
·
AND now people can have the hope to experience
breakthrough in their own lives.
Colossians
1:27 “To them (His people)
God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles are the riches of the
glory of this mystery, which is Christ
in you, the hope of glory.”
Christ
living in us is the “hope of glory.”
·
Christ in us brings us hope.
·
It’s not dependent on us to work something up.
·
It’s born out of intimacy of Jesus with us. It’s
born out of an understanding that Jesus doesn’t just live near us, but INSIDE
us… empowering us to a new life, a new identity as a righteous son/daughter of
God.
·
And is this Hope for glory beyond this life in
heaven?
·
Yes, I think it could be that, but I think it’s
sooooo much more.
·
It’s about the glory that we get to walk in
every day of our lives as we partner with the King of Glory.
We,
as a Vineyard, have labeled ourselves a community of hope.
·
Does that mean we are a community that it just
riding out our last days until the glory of the Lord returns and we all get to
go to heaven?
·
That kind of end times thinking will not endear
us to our cities.
·
That kind of thinking would make spearheading a
new ministry, starting a multisite, planting a church or sending missionaries
pretty pointless.
No, we are to create Hope within each
and every community where the Lord sends us on mission… We are to be the
hope of that community.
·
So, when I hear that Christ living in us is “the
hope of glory,” I begin to ask what does that glory look like in our present
day lives.
2
Corinthians 3:7-12 “Now if
the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not
gaze at Moses' face because of its glory,
which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have
even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far
exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all, because of the glory that surpasses it. For if
what was being brought to an end came with glory,
much more will what is permanent have glory.
Since we have such a hope, we are very bold.”
Christ
in you is the “hope of glory.”
·
Not the glory of following a set of rules.
·
Not the glory of sacrifice and law.
·
This
glory is the reflection of God in us!
·
Glory that comes from ministry by the Spirit of
God.
·
Glory that comes from understanding our identity
in Christ.
·
Glory that comes through the ministry of
righteousness.
·
Glory that comes because the Father has taken up
residence in us and wants to partner with us to accomplish his mission of hope
in our world!
·
There is a glory that comes when this revelation…
this new revelation of grace and righteousness that has been poured out on our
church (and around the world right now)… and that should breed hope in every
day of our lives.
·
God’s glory lives in you and me… wow!
Bible
So
practically, how does this “hope of glory” break through in our lives and make
us dangerous to the darkness?
·
How do you and I begin to understand and grasp
what God’s hope has done to transform us?
·
What does the hope of glory interaction within
us look like?
Hope breaks IN our heart with the
Father’s heart.
· Romans
5:5 “and hope does not
disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts
through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
· God replaces our hearts of stone
with a new heart.
·
He dwells within us and helps us to see
ourselves as he does.
·
He helps us to see others as he sees them.
·
The Father’s heart is one of hope for
reconciliation and change in every human being and that stirs up hopefulness
with us.
·
Ethne
and Corrie’s story at Family Dollar
Hope breaks IN with power.
·
Romans 15 “so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound
in hope.”
·
When the minister of hope (Holy Spirit)
interacts with our lives, we have the power to produce His fruit in our
lives.
·
If we live our lives full of joy and peace…
knowing who’s we are and finding our identity in Him… then the world cannot
touch the hope that we have. We have power to lives full and untouched.
·
Holy Spirit empowers us to live a life full of
power… full of understanding that we are the righteousness of God in Christ
Jesus.
·
We have power to extend God’s healing into every
persons life… to bring hope with us.
· Tell the story of the word of knowledge in Target.
Hope breaks IN and protects our
minds.
·
So, we need to take captive every thought and
make it obedient to Jesus.
·
When Todd White was here he talked about the
“gates of hell being right between our eyes.”
·
That our mind is the battlefield of the Kingdom.
·
1 Thessalonians 5:8 “…and for a helmet the hope
of salvation.”
·
If we live our lives understanding that we are
covered in the unmerited favor of God, then focusing of our hope of glory
becomes easier.
·
We protect our mind/thoughts with the hope of a
Savior… with knowing that we have been saved and are being saved… with knowing
that Christ’s death paved a way for him to live inside us.
·
Hope is our steadfast anchor (Hebrews 6) for our
thoughts.
Action
One
thing that Red (Morgan Freeman) said that I think is true is this:
·
Hope is a dangerous thing.
·
But not in the way he said it… Red was convinced
that holding onto something in “your prison” would always disappoint you.
·
But, we believe that hope is (as Andy said)
something inside that the world cannot touch.
·
Our hope is a person… our hope is unwavering…
our hope is Jesus Christ!
So,
for us, HOPE IS A DANGEROUS THING:
It
is because when we understand that Holy Spirit dwells within us and empowers us
to the “ministry of righteousness,” we are no longer afraid!
We
become dangerous to the darkness… we become dangerous to the orphan spirit… we
become dangerous to despair, grief, sickness, and more.
In
fact “since we have such a
hope, we are very bold!” (2Corinthians 3:12)
After
Jesus Christ (our hope) breaks IN, He then breaks THROUGH with boldness.
Boldness…
·
to share the hope that we have
·
to bring that hope to the community around us.
·
to release God’s glory into every situation.
·
to bring healing to those who despair.
·
Because we know we are partnering daily with the
King of the universe (who has taken up residence within us) to accomplish his
mission in our world.
·
Let me share one last story of bringing hope to
the hopeless…
o This
one wasn’t a one-time encounter like Family Dollar or Target
o Long
term relationship: Story of the lady at the coffee shop.
o She
had to lose hope for what I had to make sense to her.
o Healing
her mom.
The
hope of the world…
·
Is not in a manger.
·
Is not on a cross.
·
Is not some mysterious thing we can’t capture.
·
Is not so far away just waiting for us in
heaven.
·
The hope of the world lives in YOU.
So
go into 2013 and… Be the hope of the world!
Prayer & offering
MINISTRY TIME:
Empowered
to ministry.
Hopelessness
·
Job… future, relationships, boss.
·
Family… kids, spouse, other.
·
Finances
·
Adddictions
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