Confident Expectation of Goodness Sunday 9/13/20

Charlie Goessler: Whoa. So ho ho, I want to start with the conclusion this morning. I don't want to build up a message and then give you a chance to respond. I want to give you a chance to respond at the very beginning. So then your heart will be prepared for what. Uh, I believe the Lord has been preparing for us. And so, so today I've been thinking about the nature of faith. I've been thinking about the nature of trust, but most of all, I was thinking about the nature of hope, genuine, overcoming biblical hope, the hope that we have in God's goodness in our life and the trust that we can have in him because of that. I've heard. It said that whoever brings the most hope into any situation is the one who has the most influence and the most authority. And I'm not talking false optimism. I'm not just talking happy talk. I'm talking genuine hope, but what does genuine hope biblical hope look like? And so for me, that the phrase that I have reflected on pondered on that I've adopted. And through my study, even this morning has deepened. I believe that hope the best definition I can think of is a confident expectation of good. And when do you need to have a confident expectation of good when things are bad when you are frustrated, when you are disappointed, when you were suffering that. Is the anvil. That is the place where hope is born. Hope is proven and hope overcomes. So we're going to do a walkthrough Romans this morning, and I'm going to read through a whole verse, but like I said, I want to start with the conclusion. So here's what I want us to do. If you're willing at home, right. Where you are, you don't have to be embarrassed. I want to do just a, a declaration three times of this over our lives, over our circumstances, over our health, over our finances, over our children, whatever situation you need. Hope for. I want to make the declaration. I have a confident expectation of good for my life. So I'm gonna say it three times. I want you to say it in whatever level of faith you can awaken your spirit right now. Say, bless the Lord. Oh my soul. Speak into the darkness that the enemy would try to lie to you about, about your circumstances and just make that declaration over your life right now with me. So we're going to say it three times. You can say it with me. Ready. I have a confident expectation of good for my life. I have a calendar for the expectation of good for my life. I have a confident expectation of good from my life. Hey man, I'm on who? Okay. You can't. I should have worn short sleeves. They here is actually standing up on my arm. So corny is that. The older I get just the more emotional I get, the more I want to kiss and hug on people. Something really terribly wrong with me, but I'm embracing it. And I love it anyway. So ho Romans five, three through five says this. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings stop. Are you rejoicing in your sufferings or do your sufferings frustrate you. And bring shame into your life and have you blame other people? Are you suffering in a way that you don't understand that you can't fully comprehend and you don't know how to respond? Does that sound like a place of rejoicing? What are you rejoicing about? You're rejoicing. That God is the kind of God who sees death and brings life. God is the kind of God who is close to the brokenhearted who saved those who are crushed in spirit, who sees you suffering and is already responding before you ever see it or feel it or know it. He's not indifferent. He's given you the formula for overcoming that suffering. Not only that, but we rejoice in our suffering, knowing that suffering. Produces endurance and endurance produces character. The very nature of God, God's ways in your heart and character produces hope your character is established on the foundation in the hope of the goodness of God and hope does not. Put us to shame the, a new King James version says hope does not disappoint because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy spirit who has been given to us. So it's not even your own strength. Your hope is not in your intelligence. Your hope is not in your willpower. Your hope is not in your hard work, your hope originates through the life of the Holy spirit, residing in your spirit, releasing God's perspective on suffering God's perspective on your challenges and God's strength to endure and persevere and to form his character, which. Continues the cycle of hope in your life. So I love this. I want to read it directly. The definition of hope, uh, six, 1680 is the number for you. Students listen to this. I only found this this morning. I can't believe it. A desire of some good with expectation of obtaining it. So it's okay for you to desire for something good. But if your heart is filled with doubt, well, I'd like something good. I, I hope something good happens bad. I've been praying for awhile. This person doesn't listen to God. This virus is unprecedented. If, if your focus doesn't expect of obtaining something good. Then you're not going to be able to really walk in the level of faith that you need to overcome that challenge. And I just want to remind all of you. I, I, here's an exercise for you. I challenge you. Let's pause. And I want you to think about a painful situation or circumstance that has occurred in your life. Something that caught you off guard, something that was heartbreaking, a divorce, the death of a loved one, the failure of a business, a child wandering away, whatever it's been. If you really entrusted that to the Lord. If you walked with the Lord, trusting him in that circumstance. What was really the outcome of that. So just take a moment, just pause. Um, let me think of one myself. and I, I want to ask you right now. Did God take that circumstance? And begin a work in you as you walked through it, that now there's something new, something stronger, something alive in your life because of that suffering, that tragedy, that loss, that now you look back and you wouldn't want to go through it again, but it's like, God, I'm grateful that you took that evil thing. And because of your nature, cause you. Are the definition of good. You only produce good God. I'm grateful now for that disaster in my life. And so is if that isn't true yet, I want to encourage you that you can still have a desire for some good out of that situation. And I want you to have an expectation of obtaining something good, because that's what your father does for you in every situation and in every circumstance. Um, I'll just share this briefly. Most of you already know, years ago when I was a young man, I went through an unexpected, unwanted, painful divorce. That was a death experience. That was so far beyond my control. And I'm not going to tell the whole story, but within a week, the Lord spoke into my life. And the last time the things that he said, and just a time of encounter in my car was that he loved me. Which I thought I already knew I was singing. Jesus loves me. I read God is love, but when you're broken, when you're suffering, when you're confused and you don't feel worthy and others have rejected you, but God doesn't reject you in that place. He actually tells you, he loves you. When you feel worthless, then you realize his love is not based on my merit or my performance. His love is based on his character alone. Then you don't have to strive. You don't have to perform. You don't have to compare. Well, now it breaks that whole side and his grace awakens in your heart and awareness on your good days and your bad days, he loves you the same. He's never going to change. And that, by the way, is the second thing that he said. He said, he loved me and I speak this to you right now. That is enough reason for you to love yourself. If the one who knows you best and loves you, most RD says he loves you. Then you can walk with hope. You can walk with confidence. You can walk in a way that brings hope and change into other people's lives. Cause he's brought it into your life as well. And so for me, I never would have wished that on my worst enemy, but in reality, one of the most profound areas of my life I'm grateful for is an unwanted, unexpected divorce that taught me that God loved me. In a way, and to trust him in a way that I don't know if I was capable of doing it before, that was a burial. That was a death experience. I went into the grave for my dreams, for ministry and for family and everything I was pursuing at the time. And only God could put resurrection power, breathe, Holy spirit life into that situation and bring my life out of it, where it is now. I have a confident expectation of good. And I want to challenge you. It's not just mine. It is all of ours as a gift from our relationship with him. I read this in the spirit filled life Bible. So again, this is a direct quote. The hope is the most distinctive Mark of the Christian life. The ability to have hope in the midst of trials and suffering is one of the most distinctive marks of a true Christian life versus the hopelessness of people who don't have a savior for sin who don't know that there is a way for their circumstances to get turned around and have the right outcome. That their father would desire for them. So all of this flows right out of Romans five, but I only saw this this week as we continue on. And I want to put a challenge again before people, um, I am more hungry, more passionate, more committed to. Consistently being in the word of God, letting the word of God, feed me the Holy spirit, breathing upon it, but you have to choose to do it. You have to position yourself there. So I would encourage you if you want to take the challenge, read just Romans chapter eight this week, but pause before you do it, do a simple faith exercise. As you begin to open up Romans eight, just pause and say, father, this is your word. These are your thoughts. This is your heart toward me. I ask you Holy spirit to come now, breathe upon you. We're bring understanding to my heart. I let go of all my assumptions and expectations. I give you a full freedom to highlight anything, anything that you want in this chapter, as I read it. And as the divine highlighter comes, as God begins to really emphasize a part of that, don't just read on. You're not just trying to finish it in one quick pass. But hover pause around that section of Romans eight and let the Holy spirit just continue to unpack, unpack, expand water, germinate, whatever he wants from that chapter, I would really, really love if anybody takes that challenge, I would love to hear what the Lord was saying to you from this. But as I did that this week, I saw three places, three different aspects of hope. It's that Paul was talking about in Romans five. And so we're going to do a walkthrough. Um, the fact that hope is a belief that we have been set free from the bondage. The corruption of sin hope is in something that we can't see yet hope. Isn't the thing that you already possess. You no longer have to have faith. Or hope for it because it's already yours. So there's an element of trust of faith in hope. And then lastly, what our hope is really established on is the foundation of all things working toward your good. So Romans eight, 18 through 21 says for, I consider the sufferings of this present COVID pandemic. And social unrest and fires, but they are not worth comparing with the glory. That is to be revealed to us for creation waits, with eager, longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Creation wants you to come into a place of sonship, of being a daughter of walking with hope, calling forth the things that are. Unseen into the here and now letting it be here on earth, as it is in heaven. Walking with that trust of knowing father's going to reverse it all for his glory, the world, his creation is crying out for us to be revealed and to walk in that destiny for the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. That the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. So here's an interesting aspect of this and I, I struggled with it. I'll be honest with my, my initial default. I, I, I am glad now that I have been given permission. To believe that optimism is better than pessimism. That faith is better than doubt. I'm glad that I believe we are wired by God to have an optimism bias. We think better. We remain more creative when we still think there's a solution. When we still think there is hope we're designed to live in, swim in, thrive in a pool, an atmosphere of hope. Where God can move and breathe upon our circumstances. And I love that. But when I read this passage, one of the first things that jumped out at me was because of him who subjected it. Who's the him. My first reaction was I think to him as the devil, he subjected the world to sin. Now I believe most commentary, most commentaries don't believe that. And as I prayed into it, even just a little bit, I realize, you know, who subjected us to the futility of the corruption of the things that we see in the world. God was the one who subjected us to that because of his goodness. Once sin came into the world because of human. Consequences human choices. If God continued to bless sin, if he kept us with the same potential that we were created with evil could thrive, evil would proliferate. So God had to subject us to not operating as full sons and daughters because. Of the consequences of sin. He couldn't just ignore it. He couldn't just take it lightly. So I, I'm not making this a huge theology, but I'm realizing, I believe it really was God in his grace and his mercy who subjected us to having to, to trust him in the corruption of what's going on in this world. But he did it in hope. He allowed, well here, let me just read the whole universe. Has suffered the consequences of human sin, but God has provided a hope of deliverance. Let me read that again. All of creation, all the universe has suffered the consequences of human sin, but God has provided hope of deliverance and not even just deliverance. We have a hope of obtaining the freedom of the glory. God's manifest presence as sons and daughters through creation and in creation. And by the way, all of the earth verse 22 says it's groaning together in the pains of childbirth were to hate evil were to hate the things God hates and love. The thing that God loves, and God hates the futility, the corruption that evil, the suffering. That the consequences of human sin have brought into the world. And it's fine to hate that. It's fine to acknowledge that. And to even know, it's not your fault you are and are going to be the recipient of. Iniquity the effects of other people's sin and the sin of creation. There's there's no getting out of it. We're created to be creative in that situation to be the ones who turn it around and we're supposed to cry out as if we're birthing something new. And by the way, lacks last week's message about word becoming spirit. When God speaks into our hearts and we speak into our circumstances, when we speak the words of God over our lives, it is sorry. Burma it's Paramatta. It's it's impregnating seed. It's where we get our word spurn. Those words that we trust God with now, deposit life in us, and that life can be nurtured and grown and come to full birth. Whew, you should see my wife in travail. It's an amazing thing. And other people, I don't know if you've ever been at a service where a spirit of intercession just sweeps a room, but I'm serious. Sometimes hundreds, maybe thousands. It sounds like you're in a birthing ward. People are just going for it because that transformation of life coming to earth is often filled with. Some pain and it's filled with some joy. And once the birthing happens, you forget about the suffering and you rejoice in the life that has come Romans eight 24 through 25, says in this hope we are saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patients, you know, the very nature of hope I wish. Um, I wish I didn't have to wait patiently for hope. I wish my hope would instantly change my circumstances, but by then, it's not even hope anymore. A confident expectation of good, a sense of good coming out with an anticipation of actually seeing it means there's got to be a waiting time. And, and for me, I'm asking for this message to go deeper than it's ever gone before. Cause when challenges come, when frustrations arise, that's when I need to hold on to that hope. When I still don't see it, when I'm still. Waiting when I still need to trust God. I remember a story of a man named John Cavenaugh. He's an ethicist. And he went, had the opportunity to go see mother Teresa years ago. And so, uh, he was introduced to her and she asked, you know, well, what can I pray for you? And, uh, his comment was, well, I would just like for you to pray for clarity that I would just. Be able to see, you know, what's going on around me and mother Teresa actually got feisty, got a little angry, apparently from the way he shared it. And she said, no, I won't pray that for you. And then he was shocked. He's like, well, why won't you pray that I have clarity? And she said, because I haven't had one day of clarity in my life, all that I've had is trust. I'm going to pray that you learn to trust God. We think there's a place of hope where we're going to be happy in our suffering, where we're already so confident that we're already, we have clarity over everything. And the reality is no, there's a place where you don't know what's going on. And that is the foundation to an villain, which deeper faith, deeper hope is actually established in your heart. And you still are contending. You're vying for the. Reality that God is good and he's going to manifest his goodness in your life. So lastly, Romans eight 28, I think it's so beautiful. It starts in Romans five. It builds on these areas in Romans eight, but then the conclusion of the matter, what is the nature and the basis. Actually, we have our hope for, we know that those who love God. For those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. So, first off, let me just say, if your circumstances right now are aren't good. It means God isn't done yet, but here's the challenge I want to put before you is God required to make everything turn out good. That is bad. Or does he do it for those who love him? Does he do it for those who are called according to his purpose? Our focus is we want God to make our circumstances good for our sake, and then we go with skew. But the reality is we want God to make our circumstances good for his sick, and that is our hope. That he will do it. And to release greater power, greater influence, greater hope in your heart. It still comes back to falling in love with Jesus. It comes back for those who love God. So if you don't have the hope that you need today, I challenge and encourage you spend time with them. Spend time in the word, pour your heart out, get before him and worship, just come into his presence. Let your love become awakened. Take whatever that circumstance is. Why not use that as a motivating issue in your life? God, my child, God, my profession, God, my health. Let me just press in and cry out to you. God, that I can learn to love you more. And as I love you, you are going to so respond to our intimate, loving relationship that is unconditional, permanent, and eternal. You are going to begin to work to bring good out of my circumstances because God, I want your purposes. I want your will more than my will. In my life, I surrender. My heart is a prisoner of love. Let hope arise right now in the heart of everyone who's listening. Father, I declare in jesus' name again, as we started, we're going to end. I have a confident expectation of good for my life. I have a confident expectation of good for your life. Trust every situation you're facing into his care. Don't look at how big your problem is. Look at how big your God is and trust him and know you're going to obtain the inheritance. Jesus died to make possible for you. Amen. God bless you all.