This Sunday morning Rebekah Croker (New Life Children’s Leader) preached on the subject of HOPE. The message was entitled Hope, A Living Conversation. The passage referenced was from Hebrews 6:19-20. “We have this HOPE as an anchor for our soul…”
Rebekah challenged
New Life church has been through a season of much disappointment. Disappointment in finances. Disappointment in relationships. Disappointment in leadership. Our hopes as a church for the glorious promises that God has bestowed upon us have remained unrealized. Our hearts have grown sick with disappointment because our hopes have been deferred.
Yet Christian faith is all about HOPE! The world lacks HOPE! We have what the world lacks! Is your heart feeling sick? Do feel your HOPE has been deferred? Then you need more HOPE!
Rebekah exhorted us to HOPE again!
This happened not just with words. There was a HOPE WALL where people wrote their hopes and dreams. Sara Gagnon painted colorful expressions of HOPE on a canvass on the stage. The youth worship team led us in a reprise of Isaiah 61 – a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair… Church youth acted out various stories of HOPE from the Bible including the story of Abraham and God’s promise of Isaac. They built a
Nadira Deschner joined Rebekah to tag team the preach reading Biblical passages concerning HOPE! Romans 4:18;Romans 5:1-5; and Romans 8:24-25. (For more reading see: Romans 15:4; Colossians 1:5; and 1 Peter 3:15). (Roll over the texts with your mouse to see the verses). Nadira showed us painting of a morning sunrise she had done. On it were written the words of Jeremiah from Lamentations 3:21-23 - 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.
Rebekah challenged us to HOPE in God and not in HORSES! Horses are a VAIN HOPE! Proverbs 33:17. Horses are all those things we tend to hope in such as technology, money, real estate, friends, family, etc.. These are vain hopes, since it is only God who can truly save. He did that by sending Jesus and through his death he has made a way for us to enter his presence.
So in Jesus we have a new and living hope! Even if there is no reason to HOPE we can HOPE against hope because Jesus has opened up the way to GOD!
In conclusion, the whole morning was a kaleidoscope of intergenerational expressions of HOPE. It was full of colour, sound, and imagination from all of the generations. It was not simply a conversation on HOPE. It was HOPE embodied in music, art, drama and visual demonstration.
Thank you Rebekah for calling us back to HOPE! As Rebekeh exhorted us: New Life church, IT IS TIME TO HOPE AGAIN!
This message stirred much passion in me concerning HOPE! Thus it is fitting that I relaunch this Blog.
One drawback, though, was the absence of the HOPE OF RESURRECTION. I may have missed it but I did not hear it mentioned. I think this is a common problem with us Charismatics. We get the part in the gospel about Jesus, signs, wonders, the cross and heaven, but we don’t seem to get the resurrection.
It is often tagged on as a post script to the story we tell. I see this often in YWAM. Whenever the good news is shared with groups, the truncated version of the gospel often leaves the resurrection out.
That is too bad, because when you really boil it all down, the exciting about Christianity, even more than forgiveness of sin, even more than access to God’s presence, even more than heaven, is the HOPE of a RESURRECTION to life eternal in a new creation.
Contrary to popular opinion we do not spend eternity in disembodied heaven but in a new material reality with new physical bodies that will enjoy new heavens and a new earth. (Revelation 21). That is why Jesus taught us to pray, your kingdom come and your will be done ON EARTH as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:9-10;)
I have written about that already in this article When Heaven Invades Earth Twenty Four Seven! Grounding the Charismatic Hope in the Resurrection.
Now let the conversation on HOPE at New Life begin.
