Living in Hope // Becoming an Overnight Success, Part 10

Well, at some point in our lives, eventually, we come to the realisation that the idea, the promise of overnight success that the world’s been dangling under our noses is an empty promise. It happens to all of us, eventually. And at that point, what we need is hope. Not a vague, uncertain hope, but a rock–solid, absolutely certain hope.

Maybe that's what having a mid life crisis is all about, coming to the realisation that you're not going to have the overnight success that you've been chasing all your life. At some point, maybe it's in your forties or your fifties, you realise you're not the ‘bees knees’, you're not going to set the world on fire and for some it happens early, for some it happens later but that youthful exuberance that we once had, that idealism that sprang forth so naturally, that flame that burned inside us to change the world, it's quenched, it's snuffed out. It's a terrible realisation because for many it's the death of hope, for many where there was once meaning now there's only meaninglessness. King Solomon was one of the richest and wisest men to ever live. Towards the end of his life he said this, Ecclesiastes chapter 1 beginning at verse 2:

Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! Everything is vanity. What do people gain from all the toil at which they toil under the sun? A generation goes, a generation comes but the earth remains forever. The sun rises and the sun goes down, hurries to the place where it rises again. The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north and round and round goes the wind on it circuits the wind returns.

All streams run into the sea but the sea is never full, to the place where streams flow where they continue to flow. All things are wearisome, more than one can express. The eye is never satisfied with seeing or the ear filled with hearing, what has been is what will be and what has been done is what will be done.

There's nothing new under the sun, is there a thing of which it can be said, “see this is new”? It has already been in the ages before us. The people of long ago are not remembered nor will there be a remembrance of people yet to come by those who come after them.

It's a pretty sad conclusion for a rich, wealthy, powerful, wise man to come to. After all I've done, after all I've had none of it means anything. That's the stuff of mid life crisis, that's the stuff that drives people over the edge. All those years we've been sacrificing our lives for what? An ideal, an idea, an image of success that turned out to be as allusive as a mirage in the desert.

What am I living for? What am I working so hard for? They're the questions we end up asking ourselves when we've wasted half our lives, perhaps more, on the altar of success. It was that stuff, as a very successful man in my mid thirties, it was precisely this that drove me to the brink of suicide. Not everyone, thankfully, gets to that point but you'll be amazed at how many people actually think about it. Why? Because they've lost hope, because the world's promise of overnight success turned out to be a rotten stinking lie.

We talked yesterday about humility, the transformative power of having a humble heart. Well today I'd like to chat with you briefly about another word that begins with 'h', hope. The sort of hope that you need in your heart when things quite haven't worked out the way you planned them to. When hope is lost, when the future seems to have gone AWOL it's in that very place that God has something for you which goes beyond, way beyond anything that you and I could have ever imagined. Hope, real, certain, rock solid hope, writes the Apostle Paul to the Church in Rome, chapter 15 verse 13.

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul had, by this time, been through many trials in his life, in his ministry for Jesus across the known world. He'd suffered a lot, things hadn't gone the way he expected them to. He wrote this letter to the Romans in Corinth while he was on his third missionary journey. By this time he'd been on the road proclaiming Jesus for a good many years. He'd been beaten, locked up, threatened with death, he's had people ride against him, drive him out of town, plot his assassination.

He wanted to go here and there but his plans were blocked, sometimes by God, sometimes by the devil and sometimes by people. Things hadn't always gone the way he'd planned and he knew he was probably going to be locked up when he headed down to Jerusalem and yet Paul talks here in Romans chapter 15 verse 13 about the God of Hope.

A God who will fill you with all joy and all peace, not just a bit of joy now and then, not just the occasional fleeting moment of peace but all joy and all peace, the sort of joy and the sort of peace that Paul exhibited during his times of trial, the sort of joy and the sort of peace that came to him by the power of the Holy Spirit. And his prayer for the Romans is that they would abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, do you notice this abundance language here? Abound in hope, overflow with hope and all this comes through believing. Let's read it again so that it all comes together, Romans chapter 15 verse 13:

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and all peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In believing, in believing in what exactly? He's talking about believing in Jesus. For so much of my life I hoped for success and I hoped for wealth and all that stuff, that's what led me to the brink and it was in that place that Jesus met me, it was in that place that I discovered this God who loved me so much that He sent His Son to die for me, to pay the price of my sin, of my rebellion so that I, I could live for eternity with Him. Can you or I see eternity yet? No we can't, Romans chapter 8 verses 23 and 24:

For in hope we were saved, now hope that is seen is not hope for who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what is not seen we wait for it in patience.

And now that my hope is in Jesus God's given me the patience to wait for His promise, His promise of eternal life, His promise of sharing in His glory forever and ever and when Paul, from amidst his trials writes about being filled with all joy and all peace and abounding in hope and in believing, that's something I totally get because that's exactly how it is.

All those years I was chasing the shiny promises of the world that led me, in the end, towards death when all along the real answer was Jesus, the real answer is Jesus. The Old Testament Prophet Jeremiah wrote this, Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 7:

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.

Who or what have you placed your trust in? Who or what do you hope in? Success? Then you're going to be disappointed in Jesus? Then you'll be filled with a hope that abounds in you, that overflows out of you but in believing brings all joy and all peace.

I'm so conscious that so many people are listening today around the world who haven't yet placed their hope in Jesus. So if you want to do that then please pray this prayer with me right now, don't leave it one more minute.

Father God

Today I've heard about Jesus, about the One who loves me so much that He came and died and paid the price of my rebellion against you, the one who rose again to give me a life, an eternal life with you. And today I want to put all my trust and all my hope in Jesus, in Him alone. Please forgive me for all my sins, please take me just as I am, please fill me with your Holy Spirit so that by His power I might be filled with all joy and all peace and abound in the certain hope of your blessings here in this world and eternity with you. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.