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| The Four Corners …
Hope INTRODUCTION We're having a balcony added onto our home, and the contractor had quite a time getting the plans approved by the city. Among the improvements insisted on by the planning department, over the original plan, was an increase of the size of the footings at the base of the two posts that will bear most of the weight. These posts are now anchored in 18x18x18 concrete blocks. For security reasons, the balcony has to rest on a solid foundation. In life, we also need a sold foundation. In our series on the solid foundation of life, we've covered two corners so far. Faith is the cornerstone. Next to that is love. Today we go to the third corner, which is hope. The verse I've chosen for this is I Cor. 10:31,
I see that this verse has something to say about each of the last two corners, diligence and hope. But I want to take them in reverse order and look at hope today. In everything we do we should maintain the right attitude. In a word, that attitude is hope. Hope is not an easy concept to define. We know more what it feels like than what it is. So I'm going to give you a four-word definition of a hopeful attitude, and the four words form an acrostic for the word hope. A hopeful attitude includes helpfulness, optimism, praise, and expectancy. HELPFULNESS The context of I Cor. 10:31 is a discussion about one of the most hotly debated issues in the first century Christian world. Today's debate might be over the style of music to use in the worship service or how to spend the money in the building fund. The big issue then was whether or not to eat meat that had been offered as a sacrifice to idols. (It seems that there is at least one advantage to sacrificing to a lifeless idol – you always get your meat back since the idol is not going to eat it!) Some Christians complained that to eat such meat was to participate in the disgusting ritual of idol worship, while others couldn't see anything wrong with the practice. The Corinthians had evidently written to the Apostle Paul and he advised, essentially, that each person do the most helpful thing, considering the company with whom you might be eating. If it's an unbeliever whose feelings will get hurt if you reject his hospitality, the most helpful thing to do is eat it. But if it is a Christian brother who strongly objects to the practice, the most helpful thing to do is to refrain. Paul sums up his God-glorifying attitude in the words that follow verse 31,
Paul is also a good example of optimism. OPTIMISM Paul encountered many terrible circumstances in his life, but never seemed to get down in the dumps about any of them. For example, three times he was shipwrecked. One of those experiences is recorded in Acts 27. He and 275 others were caught in a furious storm on the Mediterranean Sea. Their ship was tossed into a sandbar where the pounding surf broke it to pieces. Most of those on board gave up hope, but Paul never did. In fact, he encouraged the others to take something to eat, telling them, "You need [the food] to survive." And they did survive. In fact, it was a blessing that the boat broke up. Those who couldn't swim had planks of wood to hold on to, and no lives were lost. Optimism in such situations is a brain stimulant. It allows you to think of possibilities you otherwise would miss. Pessimism, on the other hand, is a brain neutralizer, stifling your thoughts and increasing the sense of hopelessness. PRAISE When you think of a place where you might praise the Lord, I suppose you think of a church. But can you imagine praising God in less desirable digs, such as a dungeon? This is something else Paul did, again demonstrating an extraordinary attitude. This story is also from the book of Acts. Chapter 16 this time. Paul and Silas were going city to city, witnessing for Christ. They came to Philippi, healed a demon-possessed girl, and found themselves in deep trouble because of it. They were flogged, then thrown into the local prison. Verse 25 in that chapter is priceless!
Not what you'd expect, but the results were fantastic. An earthquake broke open the prison doors, but Paul and Silas chose not to escape and instead stayed there and ministered to the jailor who was dramatically converted. All this was because of an attitude of praise that couldn't be deterred. We need more PTLA people – Praise The Lord Anyway. Such an attitude glorifies God because it recognizes God's sure place as sovereign Lord. He knows what you're going through, and has decreed it for some reason. A sour attitude is really defiance against that God. EXPECTANCY I suppose, of these four words, this is the closest synonym to hope. Hope is that sense of expectancy that somehow things are going to work out for you. We all need a future, and hope is assurance that there will be a tomorrow and that things are going to be alright. Not long ago we read in the Psalms,
I also think of that famous verse in Jeremiah,
Many great men and women have been bolstered by this sense of expectancy. Charles Lindbergh, for example, said, "We actually live today in our dreams of yesterday; and living in these dreams, we dream again." CONCLUSION The attitude that we need can best be summed up in that of Jesus Christ, as Paul reminds us in Philippians. (Read Phil. 2:5-11) |