Author: Dr. Mark D. Flattery 

Chapter Ten

Victory Action #7 Live in Hope

 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13).

 

 

The amazing aroma of ethnic food made my heart jump as I walked into the restaurant that Tuesday night. I knew that I was in for a culinary delight! It was early in the evening and yet the room was filled with people seated at the tables. They were in different stages of their dining experience; some were ordering, some waiting for their food, some were in deep conversation, and not a few were neglecting the others at their table by choosing to be engaged with their cell phones. If you had asked me at the time what the common factor was between everyone at the restaurant, I would have responded rightly that they were all hungry and wanting something to eat. But there was another commonality that was much deeper and meaningful than my superficial observation.

At the table next to the mural on the wall was a man who sat alone and was staring at his plate as if he was the only person in the room. If I could have read the script of his heart that night, I would have known that he was three months into his unemployment after being laid off because his company “right sized” due to their financial mismanagement. His personal emergency fund for such a moment was drained dry and the remainder of his savings evaporated. He had no idea how he could meet his mortgage, pay for his son’s upcoming college tuition, or even how to pay the bills this month. Sadly, his self-image and self-worth took a tremendous hit and caused him to plunge into a personal downward spiral. He could see no rescue coming; he had lost all hope.

The truth was that many of the people present were dealing with such overwhelming issues that they too had lost all hope. The woman seated by the spiced tea dispenser with her

family knew that her husband’s infidelity was tearing apart their relationship so deeply that they would never recover. She had lost hope that they would ever love each other again. Even the waiter was in personal crises because his Grandmother, who raised him after his parents were killed in a car accident, was in a life-threatening coma. He had lost hope of ever speaking to her again.

If indeed hope is the “oxygen of the soul” then these people were participating in their last supper. Outwardly, they seemed like any other people that night. Inwardly, they were defeated and lost their will to fight. They had lost all hope.

 

As we begin this portion of our journey together, let us consider why it is vital, and timely, to “Take the helmet of salvation” as instructed by the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 6:17. It seems to me that the use of the helmet implies that we must protect our head which is where we think, reason, develop and exercise our will, and choose to do what is “right” over and against our emotions. We tend to picture the heart as the seat of our emotions while those in other cultures and nations use other body parts to make a similar analogy.

When life knocks you down and you are at your most vulnerable, you must allow yourself time to feel the pain, to grieve, and to express your emotions. But, you cannot stay there! You must muster as much self-discipline as you can and choose to turn your eyes on Jesus. Choosing to turn to Jesus means that you will trust in Him without reservation. Like Joshua, you must declare, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15).

The moment that you focus on Jesus is the very moment that salvation embraces you and frees you from the bondage of your personal dilemma. Jesus is the Answer. In Him, there is life, love, promise, future, purpose, healing, freedom, and hope. Jesus give you hope for today that you will not only survive but that you can begin building today your life for tomorrow.

Jesus gives you hope for your future that there are indeed brighter days ahead; days of fulfillment and days of victory. Jesus gives you hope for eternity because we have life after death and that will be so amazing that we cannot begin to comprehend what it will be like!

So, I am equating the helmet of salvation with Victory Action #7 Live in Hope. When you live in salvation, you have hope because you know the One to whom you belong (Jesus) and that your past is forgiven, He will journey with you in your present, and He will give you a future that is beyond belief. I Thessalonians 5:8 reveals the relationship between hope and salvation as well, “But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.”

I believe that if you are reading this book in the order in which it is presented then you have discovered the joy of rebuilding a vibrant life filled with hope! But, if you came immediately to this chapter because you are seeking desperately to reconnect with hope then I will tell you that your hope is found in Jesus Christ and that you must focus the entirety of your being on Him!

Victory Action #7: Live in Hope is not just recreated in your heart, but a new living hope will heal the wounds of the past, empower you for today, and inspire you to move forward in confidence as you march towards an impactful future. Paul wrote that now is the time for you to “Take the helmet of salvation” (Ephesians 6:17). While you may feel that your crushing life defeat let you feeling water boarded emotionally, Paul’s instruction will empower you to take control of your thoughts, to focus on the victory that Christ has won, and to respond to life with such confidence inwardly that others may feel it borders on arrogance in your outward expression. Living by Faith taught us to believe in God, no matter what! Living by Hope teaches us to having the attitude to trust in God, no matter what!

Paul’s prayer in Romans 15:13 provides the recipe to finding hope and your part of this salvation equation depends on your willingness to trust in Him: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Will you trust in God right now that He will get you off the canvass of life’s troubles, He will bring healing to your heart, and He will bring the Light of His love into very core of your darkest hour?

As we discussed earlier, who else will you trust? Will you trust your ability to overcome? Will you trust the counsel of others? Will you seek wisdom from a worldview, a political ideology, or religious teaching that takes you away from Christ? Even if your defeat has crushed your hope and stomped out your will to fight, the first step to your salvation is to declare that you will trust implicitly in God. Remember that such a declaration means that you will play by His rules, submit to His authority, and serve Him for His glory. This is not the time for you to walk away from your relationship with the Lord; this is the time to embrace Him fully!

Trust in the Lord that He will do the following:

· He will position you to breathe again!

· He will cover you with His love acceptance, and forgiveness.

· He will instill again in you a feeling of significance and purpose.

· He will take that which was meant for evil and turn it into God, all for His glory.

Trusting in the Lord will alter your view of the world and can transform the most negative person into a God-optimist; one whose attitude is to follow God even in spite of the circumstances. An attitude that is focused on trusting in the Lord will impact even your prayer life.

Let’s say that you are a parent whose eldest daughter is away relationally from the Lord. It is so easy to focus on what she is doing wrong, how she is missing the opportunity to fulfill her potential, and what you perceive to be the inevitable outcomes of her current behavior.

Naturally, you will spend countless hours crying out the Lord for His intervention. If you are not careful though, your prayers that seem to not bring your desired outcome immediately can lead you to worry, which leads to anxiety, which leads to bitterness, and could even see you walk away from the Lord. Instead, determine in your head and in your heart that your attitude will be one that honors God. Live in hope!

Trusting in the Lord at all times transforms your prayers from anxiety and doubt to one of hope and victory. Living in Hope means that you can pray for your prodigal like this:

· Lord, I thank you that you love my child more than I do.

· I thank you that you leave the ninety-nine sheep who are in the open country to find the one sheep which is lost.

· I thank you that you are not willing that anyone will perish but that you want every single person will be in right relationship with you.

· I thank you that you will bring people into my child’s live to speak truth to her, to challenge her to live rightly, and model your love.

· I thank you that this could be the day that the prodigal returns.

· Help me to never grow weary of praying, loving, and expecting the best of her.

Such prayers are grounded in the truth of your child’s waywardness yet they are focused on the One who loves all and who makes all things new and He is Jesus Christ. Your trust will be rewarded with joy and peace, even when the circumstances declare you suffer depression and chaos. The Holy Spirit then enters you arena and empowers you to stand firm and to be filled in abundance with hope.

Living in hope is an amazing place to be! You understand completely the severity of your current quagmire and yet, the helmet of salvation elevates your hearts affections, mind’s attention, and resulting behaviors to see Jesus. Our Lord was never baffled, stumped, or caught

unaware or unprepared. He knew the will of the Father and way obedient to death, even death on the cross. When you follow Christ and His example, you will then be empowered by the Holy Spirit to thrive in the rarified air of living in hope and victory.

Living in hope will cause you to obey God to the point of seeming to be out of touch, arrogant, or even nonsensical to those who do not know Him. But, living in hope means that you know that at the end of the contest, you are on the winning team! Here are some examples of people mentioned in God’s Word, of so many, to inspire you to live in hope.

Noah. The Bible says that Noah was a righteous man who found favor in God’s eyes. God declared that he would destroy humanity and the earth due to violence and wickedness and that it would be done by a flood. As you know the story, “Noah did everything just as God commanded him,” (Genesis 6:22). Before the rains came, it probably seemed quite odd to Noah’s neighbors, and even to his friends and family, that he was building a boat to save his family from global destruction. No doubt, he endured brutal ridicule for his willingness to be obedient to God when his actions were beyond the conventional reason of the day. Yet, Noah lived in hope that God was faithful and that His will would be done. As the Sunday School song goes, “the rains came down and the floods when up” and Noah’s hope in God become reality!

Abraham. God commanded Abram and Sarai to move to a distant land they had never seen, to live among a people they had never met, and that he would be the father of many nations. Humanly speaking, this was an outrageous outcome since Abram and Sarai were well beyond the years of child bearing, much less having the desire and strength to raise all those children! In the process of being obedient to God, their names were changed and they lived under God’s covenant. They did migrate to a new land and they lived among a differ people.

They hit some speed bumps along the way, like the time when Abraham grew impatient with God’s plan and fathered a child that was not with Sarah. But, Abraham lived in the hope that

God’s will would be done. He was faithful to do what God told him to do because, “he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). In the end, Abraham’s hope in God became reality!

Moses. Moses was a late bloomer in life who focused on his physical limitations and emotional baggage. Then God encountered him and tasked him with the role of leading His children out of bondage from the world’s greatest superpower of that day. Sure there were doubts and fears and periods of loneliness for Moses during this incredible journey. But, through it all, he live in hope that God was faithful to see His will be done. When they needed direction, God provides a cloud by day for them to follow and a pillar of fire by night. When they needed to rid themselves of their captors, God provided the Angel of Death to devastate the Egyptians and then separated the Red Sea so the Israelites could escape to safety. When they were dying of thirst, God instructed Moses to strike the rock and water gushed out like a river. When they were in dire need of bread to eat and meat to eat, God allowed manna to be available miraculously during the week and had quail fly in to sustain them. Moses’ hope in God became reality as He lead His children to the land flowing with milk and honey!

These three leaders lived in hope! They devoted their lives to trusting God, to obeying Him, and to be faithful and righteous. I am inspired also by the biblical accounts of individuals who were so immersed in living in hope that their confidence in the Lord bordered spiritual arrogance! Here are some examples:

Three Hebrew Young Men. I referenced this in an earlier chapter but I love their attitude so much that I have to mention them again! Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three Hebrew slaves who rose to attain some leadership positions in the Babylonian Empire. As you know the story, they were commanded to bow before an image of King Nebuchadnezzar as a

sign of worship or they would be killed. So, their choices were insult God by worshiping a false god or die. This was a defining moment in their lives, to state it mildly!

They loved God so much, and they lived in the hope of their salvation so deeply that they stood before the king and stated, “‘King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up’” (Daniel 3:16-18). Such confidence! Such arrogance! One cannot talk to a king in that manner and expect to live!

King Nebuchadnezzar was so enraged that he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual. The three young men were tied and fell into the fiery furnace. To the amazement of the King, the three were not alone in the fire! In fact, a fourth man was there, walking unbound and unharmed and looked “like the son of the gods” (Daniel 3:25). Many scholars believe the fourth man was Jesus.

The three young men emerged from the fiery furnace completely unharmed. Their hair was not singed, their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them! King Nebuchadnezzar then praised the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and declared that anyone who opposed their God would be “cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way!” (Daniel 3:29).

The unabashed confidence in the Lord led to their salvation and impacted greatly on how the Babylonians viewed the true God. The young men are our example of how living in hope is the only way to live!

The disciples. The book of Acts shares the incredible account of how believers accepted Christ’s command to take the Good News into all the world. They faced extreme hardships,

cruelty, and persecution on a regular basis. Yet, they were unshaken in their resolve to live in hope. One example of this was when the disciples were thrown into jail for preaching and healing people. The religious leaders of the day were jealous and did their best to terminate the disciples’ ministry. In Acts 5 we read that the Lord opened the doors of the jail, released the disciples, and told them to stand in the temple courts and “tell the people the full message of this new life” (Acts 5:20).

The disciples obeyed and quickly found themselves standing before the High Priest and the Sanhedrin; the important leaders of their nation. Humanly speaking, this situation was not one that would end well for the disciples. The odds of them being physically tortured within an inch of their lives was off the charts high. They would be thrown out of the temple permanently and their families ostracized forever. Their actions to follow Christ would cause their family name to be erased permanently from the annals of their nation. Yet, they stood in front of all the religious leaders, knowing full well the implications of their actions and attitudes, and declared, “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts 5:28). What confidence in the Lord!

We would like to think that the religious leaders, like King Nebuchadnezzar, were so impressed by their words that they praised God and released the disciples. Instead, the disciples were flogged and ordered to cease speaking “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 5:40). But, did the disciples become depressed and doubt their calling? Did they question why God did not intervene when they were being beaten? Check out their response:

“The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ” (Acts 5:41-42). They rejoiced because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name! Wow, what an amazing example of living in hope of their salvation!

The disciples were not rejoicing because they suffered but because their suffering identified them with Jesus. Their hearts were ripped apart like tearing flesh from bone and their dreams utterly and completely crushed when their Savior and Lord was tortured and crucified on the cross. We cannot imagine the depth of their despair during this time off seemingly shocking defeat. But, Jesus was not down for the count! The grave could not hold him and He rose again on the third day to defeat sin and death.

Just as Jesus was obedient to the will of the Heavenly Father to the point of suffering death, the disciples knew that they too would endure suffering because they are following in the footsteps of their Master. At the same time, the victory that Christ brought to defeat sin is the same victory that He will bring when His disciples overcome suffering in His Name. It makes sense then that they had to obey God rather than men!

This is the realm in which we should each live! We must live in hope! Jesus Christ provides our salvation for every dilemma, every season of life, and in every moment of our journey. We can live in full confidence in the Lord!

So, as you stand firm you must remember to take the helmet of salvation. You are no longer bound by fear from the attacks of our spiritual enemy. Your external circumstances do not dictate your internal self-talk and trust in the Lord. You are freed from the feelings of not being in control of your life because you can trust in the Lord. He will then fill you with such joy and peace that you will overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Walk in the hope of your salvation.

Dream in the hope of your salvation.

Fulfill God’s destiny for your life in the hope of your salvation!

 

 

For You to Consider

 

1. What must you do to “walk in the hope of your salvation?”

2. What are your dreams for the future as you follow the Lord?

3. What does God want you to do and what steps should you take towards seeing His will accomplished in your life?

 

Scripture for You to Pray Today: Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

 

What is the Lord saying to you right now?