HOPE IN A WORLD OF DISBELIEF

Sermon Summary 4/21/19, “Hope in a World of Disbelief” (Luke 24:13-27)

This week I found that a friend’s wife, Nancy, has a recurrence of cancer.  There is nothing that can be done.  Then just yesterday, another friend put his wife, Sally, in hospice after a long struggle.  A home visit made known another with terminal cancer.  What kind of world do we live in?  What kind of a God do we believe in?

What kind of God?  If my God is my puppet dancing on a string, I will soon time of him.  If he is my servant, always doing my will, I will soon misunderstand him.  If I believe God is not keeping his end of the bargain, I will soon reject him, even disbelieve in him.  What is the bargain?

The disciples on the road to Emmaus were in despair and without hope: “We had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.”  Their bargain in following Jesus was redemption.  The death of Jesus did not hold up the bargain they believed in.  They were in despair. 

John completes his Gospel with our bargain: “These [signs] were written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God, and in so believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:31)  Life, Eternal Life is God’s bargain.  It is God’s plan for our salvation.

But we have doubts.  Rosemary’s sister, Dorothy, a woman of great faith, needed assurance when here mother then her son died.  She wrote everyone under the sun even getting responses from Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham.  She wanted assurance that God was keeping his end of the bargain.

So what kind of God do we believe in?  A God who created us to love, wants us to love him in return, have dominion over his creation and as God’s agents live a moral life.  And one thing more, we have a God who has a plan for our salvation!  You remember, ¹⁶ For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.  ¹⁷ “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)

What are we to do to restore our beliefs, renew our hope?  First, make the Resurrection part of our resume.  Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” and “Because I live, you shall live also.”  Second, take Jesus to heart, internalize his stories, life them to apply to us today.  And third, make our faith define our meaning and purpose.  More about that next week.  Amen.