This weekend marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. Buying gifts is one of the ways we prepare for Christmas, but we must not forget to prepare our spirits to receive the gift of God's love in Jesus Christ. This week marks the first Sunday of Advent and we looked at the gift of Hope. Each week we will look at how we find our way back to God through the "6º of Advent: Reconnecting Christmas with Christ." This week we connected I am Legend & the Great I Am as we found our way back to hope in God.
click for audio:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/95wbtib5pcqk9pe/6%BA%20of%20Hope.mp3
INTRO
Advent is always an important yet challenging time to preach. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. It is a spiritual returning to God. We hear the same story each year and try to tell it in a new way. This year I am going to try and do something different. There was a movie about 20 years ago called, Six Degrees of Separation and it is the idea that every human being can be connect with only six relationships. The invention of social media like Facebook is built somewhat on this principle. I think the large principle to life is that we are never far from anything. Whether it be hope or despair, love or hatred, peace or chaos. Life isn’t as full as opposites as we might think. We are never more than a few well timed events from our lives being forever changed for the positive or negative. This fact immobilizes some and frees others. My desire is that it will free you to discover God and the life that God intends for each of you. Over the next four weeks, we will look at the Christian ideals that God wants to give each of us through his Son Jesus Christ: hope, peace, joy, and love. As part of the series, we will do a “fun” exercise of six degrees of these ideals and then look at how we can move towards each of them in our lives.
This morning we will look at the 6º of Hope and we will begin with the movie I am Legend and arrive at the name for God, “the Great I Am.” If you don’t quite get it, just follow along and you should by the end.
SIX DEGREES
1º The movie clip we just saw is from movie I am Legend and it is about a virus initially intended to cure cancer that mutates into something terrible, unstoppable, and incurable. This movie depicts a world that showed tremendous promise only to fall into complete hopelessness. The human beings have become monsters and their only hope is scientist Robert Neville played by actor Will Smith.
2 º Will Smith is a famous actor and rapper who became popular in the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Belair in the 1990’s. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor on the planet and won numerous awards for his movies. He received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his roles in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
3 º In The Pursuit of Happyness, Smith plays Chris Gardner a man who loses his job and his family and finds himself and on the streets of San Francisco. Chris is an intelligent and hardworking man who is determined to rebound from the situation and get his family back. He eventually gets back on his feet and much more through the help he finds at Glide Memorial Church’s homeless shelter and their inspiring worship services.
4 º Glide Memorial Church was founded in 1929 in San Francisco by a Methodist philanthropist Lizzie Glide purchased land in San Francisco and Glide Memorial was formed. In the 1960’s Cecil Williams helped revitalize the congregation to minister to the changing needs of the community. It continues to thrive as a progressive church in the city. Glide Memorial began and it still affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
5 º The United Methodist Church was founded in 1968 when the Methodist Episcopal and Evangelical United Brethren Churches merged. One of its defining beliefs is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral which helps Christians to live out their faith. It affirms the primacy of the Bible and encourages followers to illuminate their faith through the means of tradition, reason, and experience.
6 º The Bible, at its core, it is a story about God making himself known to the world. In Exodus 3, God reveals himself to Moses and reveals his name to the people. In the Hebrew, it is YHWH and we tend to translate it into English as “I am who I am” or simply “I AM” This is where we get the name of God as the Great I Am, who is the one who is the ultimate source of hope in any situation.
FINDING REAL HOPE
So we see how in 6 º we can move from the hopelessness of I am Legend to the hope rooted in the Great I am, YHWH. And while it is fun place the game, how do we indeed move out of our own places of hopelessness. After all, the world may not have literally been turned into monsters by an evil mutated virus, but it just might feel like that. (I think I was half way there this week with the flu!)
1 º of Hope is to be rooted in reality.
We are taught there are two kinds of people in the world. There are the glass is half full kind of people and the glass is half empty kind of people. I used to be a half full kind of person. I tended to be trusting of people, optimistic, and hopeful of the world. Growing up in the 1990’s in white suburbia I didn’t know any better. I believed the world was always full of possibility and hope. Then, I got married and went into ministry. My wife could easily be labeled a glass is half empty kind of person. Early on in our marriage we would get into arguments because I thought she was being pessimistic. She would kindly inform me that she was simply being realistic. I didn’t get this nor did I like it. In my world, if you weren’t optimistic, then you were pessimistic. In Michelle’s world, if you were optimistic, then you were simply naive.
The reality is that Michelle is right. There is a third kind of person… there is the optimistic person and the pessimistic person, but then there is the realistic person… the glass has some water in it kind of person. As we look at our own hopelessness and desperate situations, it is important that we learn to see them realistically. If we want to get through difficult, if you want to learn to thrive again, then you need to see the world accurately. Hopelessness begins to be transformed by seeing reality accurately.
In Jim Collin’s book Good to Great, he tells a story about the Stockdale Paradox. The name comes from Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp in Vietnam. Stockdale survived through the worst of conditions without the hope of ever being freed. In an interview with Stockdale, Collins details the keys to who survived and who didn’t survive in the camp. The first insight he shared was that the optimists didn’t make it. They would always say things like, “We’ll be out by Christmas.” When they didn’t, they’d die of a broken heart. The key to Stockdale’s survival and certainly many others could be summarized by this quote from Stockdale, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
To live in reality means to confront the most brutal of facts. When we find ourselves in difficult situations, nothing else will do. To live in denial will lead to delusion and destruction. We aren’t equipped to respond to the actually problems because we fail to see them for what they are. For instance, if you find yourself in financial difficult or having marital problems, ignoring them won’t make them go away. In fact, they will generally get worse. Denial leads to things like debt, divorce, and worse, instead, confronting the facts, sharing your problem with others, and devising a plan of attack, with help to resolve almost any situation.
To live in reality means to abandon optimism. When I hear someone respond to a heartbreaking situation with false words of optimism it makes me cringe. The worst offenders tend to be Christians. It tends to be expressed in something like this, “God must have a reason/ purpose for it [terrible tragedy].” I think we have been programmed to respond this way because we think we are supposed to be hopeful, optimistic people. In actuality, our faith gives us the ability to be realists. We know that God will triumphant in the end, but that doesn’t mean that the world isn’t a dark and hurting place currently. My mantra when I find myself in difficult situations is “God can use this for good.” This statement allows room for the pain and heartbreak, and it clings onto a hope that has teeth. It transforms challenges into opportunities. It makes every situation full for potential in God. It doesn’t mean God brings bad things into our lives, but it does mean that God will guide us through them and use them for our good.
To fully grasp how God can accomplish this brings us to our second degree of hope.
2 º of Hope is found by waiting for the God of Resurrection.
Staring reality in the face can be a frightening and even disheartening experience. This is why it is important to know the source of Christian hope. Christian hope is not simply wishing for things to be better. It isn’t hoping the Cavs, Indians or Browns win a championship. Christian hope isn’t rooted in the temporal experience of this world. Instead, Christian hope is rooted in the Great I Am. God, the Creator and sustainer for the universe is the source of Christian hope.
In Matthew 24, we learn about the Christian hope as we hear Jesus talk about the importance of waiting for God’s return. An essential part of Christian doctrine is rooted in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus will return to usher in a new heaven and a new earth. The Second Coming teaches us that God isn’t finished with his work on this earth. The primary work that God has not yet accomplished here is the bodily resurrection of all believers in Jesus Christ. While we don’t know how, when or where God will carry this out, we do know that he will. And this fact, gives us the final score of the game. The promise of bodily resurrection and its demonstration in Jesus Christ tells us how the story is going to end. Knowing the ending, enables us to keep hope because we know that all is not lost.
Therefore, Embracing the hope of Resurrection enables us to deal with hopelessness in the world. We do not have to fear disappointment, destruction and death when we know resurrection is on the horizon. It tells us that we are playing for the winning team. We know that God will stand triumphant for eternity and that we will be able to stand by his side. And so when times get tough, we can cling to the hope of resurrection.
It is important to know that resurrection is not just going to heaven when we die, but it is much more. Resurrection, I think, is best defined by author and Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright as “life after life after death.” Resurrection is complete victory over death and sin. In resurrection, we will be transformed into the full glory of God. And while I can’t fully explain it, I believe that each experience on this earth contributes towards that full transformation at the resurrection. How do your current struggles look if you know that God will use them to transform you for eternity?
God is using this world to shape and mold you into his image if you will permit him to. Therefore, in a very real way, resurrection is not only a future hope but a present activity in the life of a believer. We can begin to live into earthly resurrection on a daily basis. In Luke 9:24 Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” When we learn to stand on the Scriptures and the promises of God, we can be strengthened through all circumstances. Each challenge becomes an opportunity for God to act in a mighty way.
NO LONGER FICKLE
I believe these two degrees of hope help move us out of a place of desperation and despair. Hope doesn’t have to be a fickle friend or a fleeting emotion. Christian hope is rooted in eternity and the Great I am. There don’t have to be six degrees of separation from your current situation to a place of hope and light. Instead, if we will be brave enough to look reality in the face and cling to the hope of resurrection, then we can overcome. We can stand victorious in all circumstances. We know how the story ends. We know who wins the game. God is and always will be the Great I Am. God will always sit on the throne. And you and I will always be called his children.
I want to conclude on a personal note and I might not make it through it. We go in for further tests this week on baby Jude to find out more about his heart condition. We covet your prayers for strength and healing as we continue to journey through this difficult time. I can honest tell you that as I look for hope in this situation my words this morning aren’t empty or hollow. They give me strength and they give me hope. I pray they will do the same for you in all situations.
Let’s pray.
click for audio:
http://www.mediafire.com/file/95wbtib5pcqk9pe/6%BA%20of%20Hope.mp3
“6º of Hope: I am Legend & the Great I AM”
Brimfield Faith UMC / November 28, 2010
Matthew 24:36-44
Brimfield Faith UMC / November 28, 2010
Matthew 24:36-44
INTRO
Advent is always an important yet challenging time to preach. Advent is a time of preparation for the coming of the Lord. It is a spiritual returning to God. We hear the same story each year and try to tell it in a new way. This year I am going to try and do something different. There was a movie about 20 years ago called, Six Degrees of Separation and it is the idea that every human being can be connect with only six relationships. The invention of social media like Facebook is built somewhat on this principle. I think the large principle to life is that we are never far from anything. Whether it be hope or despair, love or hatred, peace or chaos. Life isn’t as full as opposites as we might think. We are never more than a few well timed events from our lives being forever changed for the positive or negative. This fact immobilizes some and frees others. My desire is that it will free you to discover God and the life that God intends for each of you. Over the next four weeks, we will look at the Christian ideals that God wants to give each of us through his Son Jesus Christ: hope, peace, joy, and love. As part of the series, we will do a “fun” exercise of six degrees of these ideals and then look at how we can move towards each of them in our lives.
This morning we will look at the 6º of Hope and we will begin with the movie I am Legend and arrive at the name for God, “the Great I Am.” If you don’t quite get it, just follow along and you should by the end.
SIX DEGREES
1º The movie clip we just saw is from movie I am Legend and it is about a virus initially intended to cure cancer that mutates into something terrible, unstoppable, and incurable. This movie depicts a world that showed tremendous promise only to fall into complete hopelessness. The human beings have become monsters and their only hope is scientist Robert Neville played by actor Will Smith.
2 º Will Smith is a famous actor and rapper who became popular in the sitcom The Fresh Prince of Belair in the 1990’s. In April 2007, Newsweek called him the most powerful actor on the planet and won numerous awards for his movies. He received a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his roles in Ali and The Pursuit of Happyness.
3 º In The Pursuit of Happyness, Smith plays Chris Gardner a man who loses his job and his family and finds himself and on the streets of San Francisco. Chris is an intelligent and hardworking man who is determined to rebound from the situation and get his family back. He eventually gets back on his feet and much more through the help he finds at Glide Memorial Church’s homeless shelter and their inspiring worship services.
4 º Glide Memorial Church was founded in 1929 in San Francisco by a Methodist philanthropist Lizzie Glide purchased land in San Francisco and Glide Memorial was formed. In the 1960’s Cecil Williams helped revitalize the congregation to minister to the changing needs of the community. It continues to thrive as a progressive church in the city. Glide Memorial began and it still affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
5 º The United Methodist Church was founded in 1968 when the Methodist Episcopal and Evangelical United Brethren Churches merged. One of its defining beliefs is the Wesleyan Quadrilateral which helps Christians to live out their faith. It affirms the primacy of the Bible and encourages followers to illuminate their faith through the means of tradition, reason, and experience.
6 º The Bible, at its core, it is a story about God making himself known to the world. In Exodus 3, God reveals himself to Moses and reveals his name to the people. In the Hebrew, it is YHWH and we tend to translate it into English as “I am who I am” or simply “I AM” This is where we get the name of God as the Great I Am, who is the one who is the ultimate source of hope in any situation.
FINDING REAL HOPE
So we see how in 6 º we can move from the hopelessness of I am Legend to the hope rooted in the Great I am, YHWH. And while it is fun place the game, how do we indeed move out of our own places of hopelessness. After all, the world may not have literally been turned into monsters by an evil mutated virus, but it just might feel like that. (I think I was half way there this week with the flu!)
1 º of Hope is to be rooted in reality.
We are taught there are two kinds of people in the world. There are the glass is half full kind of people and the glass is half empty kind of people. I used to be a half full kind of person. I tended to be trusting of people, optimistic, and hopeful of the world. Growing up in the 1990’s in white suburbia I didn’t know any better. I believed the world was always full of possibility and hope. Then, I got married and went into ministry. My wife could easily be labeled a glass is half empty kind of person. Early on in our marriage we would get into arguments because I thought she was being pessimistic. She would kindly inform me that she was simply being realistic. I didn’t get this nor did I like it. In my world, if you weren’t optimistic, then you were pessimistic. In Michelle’s world, if you were optimistic, then you were simply naive.
The reality is that Michelle is right. There is a third kind of person… there is the optimistic person and the pessimistic person, but then there is the realistic person… the glass has some water in it kind of person. As we look at our own hopelessness and desperate situations, it is important that we learn to see them realistically. If we want to get through difficult, if you want to learn to thrive again, then you need to see the world accurately. Hopelessness begins to be transformed by seeing reality accurately.
In Jim Collin’s book Good to Great, he tells a story about the Stockdale Paradox. The name comes from Admiral Jim Stockdale, who was the highest-ranking United States military officer in the “Hanoi Hilton” POW camp in Vietnam. Stockdale survived through the worst of conditions without the hope of ever being freed. In an interview with Stockdale, Collins details the keys to who survived and who didn’t survive in the camp. The first insight he shared was that the optimists didn’t make it. They would always say things like, “We’ll be out by Christmas.” When they didn’t, they’d die of a broken heart. The key to Stockdale’s survival and certainly many others could be summarized by this quote from Stockdale, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end – which you can never afford to lose – with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”
To live in reality means to confront the most brutal of facts. When we find ourselves in difficult situations, nothing else will do. To live in denial will lead to delusion and destruction. We aren’t equipped to respond to the actually problems because we fail to see them for what they are. For instance, if you find yourself in financial difficult or having marital problems, ignoring them won’t make them go away. In fact, they will generally get worse. Denial leads to things like debt, divorce, and worse, instead, confronting the facts, sharing your problem with others, and devising a plan of attack, with help to resolve almost any situation.
To live in reality means to abandon optimism. When I hear someone respond to a heartbreaking situation with false words of optimism it makes me cringe. The worst offenders tend to be Christians. It tends to be expressed in something like this, “God must have a reason/ purpose for it [terrible tragedy].” I think we have been programmed to respond this way because we think we are supposed to be hopeful, optimistic people. In actuality, our faith gives us the ability to be realists. We know that God will triumphant in the end, but that doesn’t mean that the world isn’t a dark and hurting place currently. My mantra when I find myself in difficult situations is “God can use this for good.” This statement allows room for the pain and heartbreak, and it clings onto a hope that has teeth. It transforms challenges into opportunities. It makes every situation full for potential in God. It doesn’t mean God brings bad things into our lives, but it does mean that God will guide us through them and use them for our good.
To fully grasp how God can accomplish this brings us to our second degree of hope.
2 º of Hope is found by waiting for the God of Resurrection.
Staring reality in the face can be a frightening and even disheartening experience. This is why it is important to know the source of Christian hope. Christian hope is not simply wishing for things to be better. It isn’t hoping the Cavs, Indians or Browns win a championship. Christian hope isn’t rooted in the temporal experience of this world. Instead, Christian hope is rooted in the Great I Am. God, the Creator and sustainer for the universe is the source of Christian hope.
In Matthew 24, we learn about the Christian hope as we hear Jesus talk about the importance of waiting for God’s return. An essential part of Christian doctrine is rooted in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. We believe that Jesus will return to usher in a new heaven and a new earth. The Second Coming teaches us that God isn’t finished with his work on this earth. The primary work that God has not yet accomplished here is the bodily resurrection of all believers in Jesus Christ. While we don’t know how, when or where God will carry this out, we do know that he will. And this fact, gives us the final score of the game. The promise of bodily resurrection and its demonstration in Jesus Christ tells us how the story is going to end. Knowing the ending, enables us to keep hope because we know that all is not lost.
Therefore, Embracing the hope of Resurrection enables us to deal with hopelessness in the world. We do not have to fear disappointment, destruction and death when we know resurrection is on the horizon. It tells us that we are playing for the winning team. We know that God will stand triumphant for eternity and that we will be able to stand by his side. And so when times get tough, we can cling to the hope of resurrection.
It is important to know that resurrection is not just going to heaven when we die, but it is much more. Resurrection, I think, is best defined by author and Anglican Bishop N.T. Wright as “life after life after death.” Resurrection is complete victory over death and sin. In resurrection, we will be transformed into the full glory of God. And while I can’t fully explain it, I believe that each experience on this earth contributes towards that full transformation at the resurrection. How do your current struggles look if you know that God will use them to transform you for eternity?
God is using this world to shape and mold you into his image if you will permit him to. Therefore, in a very real way, resurrection is not only a future hope but a present activity in the life of a believer. We can begin to live into earthly resurrection on a daily basis. In Luke 9:24 Jesus says, “For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it.” When we learn to stand on the Scriptures and the promises of God, we can be strengthened through all circumstances. Each challenge becomes an opportunity for God to act in a mighty way.
NO LONGER FICKLE
I believe these two degrees of hope help move us out of a place of desperation and despair. Hope doesn’t have to be a fickle friend or a fleeting emotion. Christian hope is rooted in eternity and the Great I am. There don’t have to be six degrees of separation from your current situation to a place of hope and light. Instead, if we will be brave enough to look reality in the face and cling to the hope of resurrection, then we can overcome. We can stand victorious in all circumstances. We know how the story ends. We know who wins the game. God is and always will be the Great I Am. God will always sit on the throne. And you and I will always be called his children.
I want to conclude on a personal note and I might not make it through it. We go in for further tests this week on baby Jude to find out more about his heart condition. We covet your prayers for strength and healing as we continue to journey through this difficult time. I can honest tell you that as I look for hope in this situation my words this morning aren’t empty or hollow. They give me strength and they give me hope. I pray they will do the same for you in all situations.
Let’s pray.
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