Hey there tribe!!  I had the opportunity to share yesterday at my church.  To share hope and my story which reveals the power of hope to get us through any season in life.  You know I love to teach, I used to run to the desk when my teacher would leave and teach my class.  That teacher didn't appreciate it.  Below you will find my notes.  Of course, I shared my story intertwined with my notes.  Actually didn't use my notes, but still hit the high points (I hope).  Forgive typos and the way I write for my messages, I know how goofy it is but it is just me and how I talk.  Hope it encourages you and you find something from the Lord that speaks to your heart.  Happy hope filled day!!  I love you tons.  

Let me tell you a little about me before we get started….

Readers Digest of myself…if you could read my story(you can read a lot of it at debbiehornsby.com…all of it… Let me tell you a quick little bit about me……ADHD tied in my chair by teacher……artist, writer, ………pastor……….HEART(my story)…Surviving the Sh*t Storms of Life

PRAY

So today we are talking about hope, something a know a little about…I have been hopeless in my life and I have learned to build hope and live in hope so that I wasn’t taken out by the trials of life. 

 The apostle Paul wrote in several places about what hope leads to or adds to: patience, courage, and joy. It makes us stable, and we are saved in hope. It is one of the three things which last forever: faith, hope, and love.

Hope is the miracle grow to our faith, hope is what gives us the ability to believe in the unseen!

As believers we have the greatest hope, not just for the future but for living our daily lives. 

Sometimes we get this hope confused with hope for heaven….we also have hope for today in the land of the living.

Hope is the greatest tool for fighting doubt, fear and depression. 

I have survived the worst tragedy I think you can experience, the death of a child.  The fear, doubt and depression that wanted to take me out was monumental…

Over 20 years of building a foundation of hope is what brought me through it.  Not in some sticky sweet touch from God but in a daily bloody fight of trying hard to hold unto hope…It wasn’t pretty…(Share story)

It was however necessary in order to survive….every word I had treasured was called into question and I had to make a decision to live in hope, to believe that it would get better. 

You see without hope we make short sighted decisions for the moment, think jacob and esau…Esau who traded his birthright for some food…This guy really was HANGRY.

With hope we are like Abraham willing to obey God to the point of sacrificing his son because he had the hope of what God would do!

We all need to grow our hope when in the good seasons…so that we don’t fall in the hard seasons.

Life is built around seasons…

Sometimes seasons don’t seem fruitful but it may be a season of growing deeper roots.   Yay!!! FOR ROOTS

I always had the faith of a mustard seed…I rarely saw mountains moved, not for lack of trying but I did see God take me right through the mountain…and that is what my hope was always in….HE will get to me to the other side…somehow, someway

Hope waxes and wanes….none of us are immune…There is no condemnation when we find ourselves struggling to live in hope, it just means we must seek help from people that have hope to share.  We need the overflow of hope from others. 

All I can share with you is what has worked for me, what I have learned through the word, my life and through my failures. 

This is the verse we will mostly stay on this morning. 

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

#1

Born into a living hope: (Salvation)

These three things last forever…faith, hope and love.

·       Build a foundation---knowledge, prayer and reflection and pass it on

·       Faith comes through hearing…

·       The character of God…He didn’t withhold his own son…sovereign, omnipotent, ominipresent,

·       My hope comes from HIM….stir up the hope already deposited in you

·      Don’t get spiritual amnesia…remember all He has done for you since you were born into this living hope.  You can always have hope when you look at the past. (art journal)

#2

Suffer grief in all kinds of trial: Expectations….God is with us in the fire think the lions den...(example)

Psalm 31:24

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Psalm 9:18

But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

Romans 8:28 We know…all things…

·       Lean into hope

·       Be intentional

·       Remember—don’t suddenly get spiritual amnesia

·       Trust—go back to the knowledge of who God is

·       Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the lord.  Psalm 31:24

·       All things work together Romans 8:28 

·       There is always a purpose in the pain/redemption of pain

#3

Praise through the pain-- Result in praise, glory and honor: 

Power of Encounter to renew hope! To get a word you can hang onto…Shower story….  We need an encounter...praise brings heaven down....

As for me I will always have hope, I will praise you more and more Psalm 71:14

Job 13:15 though you slay me…praising God after Justin died

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;(yet will I praise him)
    I will surely^[a] defend my ways to his face. (argue my case)

This is when you are empowered to make the most impact!

People are captivated by the Jesus in you that they see in the worst of times.

Allow hope to shine, speak hope, draw from the well of what you have seen and heard about the goodness of God…Don’t quit praising God…Just as you praise Him in the good things (that is so easy) will you praise him in the difficulties. 

I don’t want to sound trite, it is not easy.  It is an act of your will to stop the cycle of downward spiral that we can all get into but hope is the answer….hope leads upward…reminding us to look in faith, to live in love even when the cup we are drinking from is sour.  You will live in joy and sometimes that joy will get mixed in with sorrow but you are equipped with all you need to burn the pain out with love, hope and faith.  

The goal is to 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