Where is Hope found?

As we look around at our culture and society today most of us at different points and seasons of life have experienced hopelessness, anxiety, and fear at some point, if not constantly in our daily life. We may experience Pressure and anxiety about academics and success, pressure to get the highest paying job, anxiety about finding the best romantic partner, and  about figuring out who you truly are and how you want the world to see you.  

We are each on a journey. Many of us searching for true satisfaction and happiness, in relationships, parties, academic success. Many of us do find happiness and satisfaction in these things… but if we are truly honest it never seems to truly last. Sure it feels good for a while, we experience joy and laughter, connection, freedom, but at some point these things that once gave us life, satisfaction, joy, get old… or circumstances that were once filled with joy and excitement, can leave us feeling Isolated, alone, heartbroken and hopeless. But what if we were placing our hope for love, success, fulfillment, joy, in all the wrong things? What if I told you there was something or someone that could truly satisfy these longings you’ve desired for so long in a way that can completely change how you see and love yourself and others around you? 

Now I know at this point I will probably lose many of you…. Because for many of you just hearing the name Jesus rises many emotions within you. Feelings of judgment, hurt, betrayal, fear, manipulation. I take ownership of the ways many of those who call themselves christians have used the name of Jesus to further an oppressive and manipulative agenda, and I am truly and genuinely heartbroken for the ways you may have experienced Jesus through those who claim to love Him. But many of you only know Jesus through the words of someone else. How many of you have actually read the words of Jesus? Read for yourselves the ways that Jesus interacted with those around him? If you do take the time to read about the life of Jesus in the Bible, you will see how most of the people he spent time with were the outcasts of society who lived under the shadow of shame, judgement, and revulsion. Those that by the pious, righteous, religious rulers at the time, considered the worst “sinners” and by their strict religious rules and regulations were considered irredeemable. These were the people that actually saw the biggest changes in their lives because Jesus didn’t expect them to get their act together and for their life to be perfect, to experience forgiveness and this act of healing that they did nothing to deserve. As you take time to read Jesus’ words for yourself, you’ll see that at the heart of everything that Jesus says and does is compassion and love. He does nothing to further himself or a religious agenda, and surprisingly most of his life and words frequently challenge the righteous religious rulers at the time. Every word He says.. every action he does is because of tender, gentle, transforming love. 

But Jesus didn’t just do this for those people thousands of years ago. He also did this for you and He did this for me. Jesus saw the hopelessness and brokenness of this world that was unjust, selfish, and manipulative. Saw the ways this pain, and brokenness blinded and separated us from a just perfect God who desired those He created and loved, who were cut off from him because of the evil in this world, to know him in a intimately personal way. Recognizing that the only way back to truly knowing and experiencing a depth of relationship with God was to cover the penalty of death that we deserve because of the brokenness in our own hearts, with his own death. Being the only person who has lived a perfect life without causing any offense or breaking any moral law, His death and later coming back to life showed that He had power over death. Proving that His death and resurrection has the power to reconcile and pay the consequences that we deserve because of our choices that leave us stuck in shame, judgment or revulsion. 

Now many of you who have made it this far might say, ok well this all logically makes sense and I recognize that there could be truth to this… but its not enough to logically agree with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. We each have to make a choice to believe that Jesus was who he says he was, and believe that His death and resurrection truly can connect us to God in personal ways that may transform our lives. We have to be willing to trust in Jesus and ask Jesus to be at the center of our lives so that the way we love ourselves, and love those around us in a way that reflects how Jesus loved those around Him. If you haven’t put your trust or faith in Jesus, or if you have grown up hearing and knowing these truths about Jesus but haven’t decided to choose your faith as your own… would you be willing to choose to trust in Jesus by recognizing your shame that separates you  from God and accepting the forgiveness that Jesus gives and entrusting your life to Jesus in prayer? 

I recognize that for many of you may not feel like you aren’t quite ready for that yet…. for those of you that land here, I would encourage you to read Jesus’s words for yourself. Jesus offers an invitation when He says “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.” In time I hope that you come to experience Jesus for yourself. That you read his words for yourself and experience how His life and actions are actually the opposite of what many of our experiences with those who call themselves christians are. True lifelong satisfaction and hope can be found in Jesus. That even when it feels like life is falling apart, that the hope that Jesus offers is a lifejacket to those of us that are weathering traumatic, hard, grief stricken storms in this life and I pray in time you come to place your faith and hope in the never changing life of Jesus.

Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

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