3 Ways to Keep Hope Alive - LIFECENTRAL CHURCH ONLINE

[Music] [Music] good morning everyone it is so good to see you here in the room in household and for those of you watching online you are really welcome as well and a big shout out to those of you watching in rowley re-gathered there in that space and also if you're in plibery later on today and you're watching or bronzegrave or wherever you're watching from fact if you are watching online we'd love to know where you're watching from so why don't you drop it in the chat one of our guys would love to chat with you as you're watching and joining with us here uh at life central church my name is leon i'm the lead pastor here and we are in the second week of a series called reset okay and i don't know whether you remember where you were when it happened august the 31st 1997 how many of you remember when princess diana i remember where i was because i was asleep in bed because the night before i just got back from a mission trip to bulgaria and my wife woke me up with the news and i remember that on the mondays it was on a sunday so then i got up and you know kind of got my head around it went to church then on the monday i had a meeting with a a teacher in a local school and as i turned up for the meeting the headmaster came out into the foyer and said leon i'm glad you're here all of the school are in the hall we're all upset we're all lighting candles we want you to come in and tell them all why they're also upset and what happens when you die would you do that now i was like okay i'll go do that no pressure there but i don't know whether you remember that it was like such an iconic moment wasn't it was almost like in that moment everyone remembers where they were and then a few years later you remember where you were when you saw this in fact i remember where i was i was i was in someone's a couple from the church um in their house having a cup of tea not far from here just seeing them checking in on them etc just having a chat with them and i remember someone contacting me and saying you need to switch the tv on 20 years ago yesterday um many many of you maybe if you're watching or you're here in the room or you're online maybe you're too young but but those of us that aren't to you we remember where we were when this happened it's almost like that instance 20 years ago when those planes flew into the twin towers in new york it was almost like it defined something and almost like the world stopped it's almost like it felt that hope had died when that happened fast forward 20 years and uh there are some other iconic if you like pictures that that are seared in our mind and in our memory when it comes to hype and of course there's this one which we're still in the whole covid pandemic how many of us have been through something like this i want to suggest maybe none of us and then of course just in these last few weeks we've been watching afghanistan and seeing the situations emerged there and it's so like stirred up so many feelings and emotions within us and then and then of course natural disasters you know in 2021 we've had more natural disasters in the first six months of the year i think than on record there seems to be an increase and of course we understand that a lot of that is because our climate desperately needs a reset and our world is so kind of you know shaken by all these things and then in this last couple of years more and more we've been aware that they're still we're still living in a racially divided world in fact i do love this picture here if you if you're a football fan you'll understand this is from when england played hungary a few years a few years a few weeks ago and actually even now in 2021 the players were subject to racial taunts and we won fawn in and i love that kind of uh headline hope for hate nil you know here's the reality hope is incredibly important guys and whether you're a person of faith or not hope is incredibly important your hope is like it's like the fuel for the soul and the oxygen for the lungs hope is the energy that keeps us going when the gravity of reality wants to defeat us i love what a guy called robert ingersoll said hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers i love that it's almost like hope has that ability to to create something positive when there's nothing almost there but my actual favorite quote about hope is one that if you're british you'll get and speaking about british we have a family in this morning that i just want to mention because several years ago this family left us and went and moved to america james and callie hamilton and joey and elijah are with us this morning so if you know james okay put your hands together and welcome them james was actually on staff here with us for many years as our kids pastor and great friends and and they've moved out and their part is on a team a very big significant church in california why on earth you'd want to leave hal zoe in for california i mean what is going on but you're still there still british and it was great meeting them last night and there's still a british accent so they'll get it and if you're british you'll get it i love love love this quote about hope here it is where there's tea there's hope isn't that right that's so english isn't it but you know hope is a little bit more serious than that you see we're talking about resetting our lives to what the apostle paul in the book of corinthians says are the three things that will remain these are the three mountaintops if you're gonna reset your life you're gonna base your life on these three things faith hope and love and last week we looked at faith this week we're gonna look at hope the next two to three weeks we're going to look at love and expand that because paul said that the greatest of these is love but you know faith is really connected to hope in fact in hebrews 11 verse 1 it says this faith shows the reality of what we hope for it is the evidence of things we cannot see and the word that's often used for the word hope in the new testament is a greek word called elpis and if you look at the history of this word in greek mythology alphys was the spirit of hope and the mythology says that pandora's box that that there are all these spirits good and bad and elpis the spirit of hope was the last one to leave the box but actually in the bible understanding of hope hope isn't wishful thinking hope isn't i hope it happens hope isn't that hope is this hope is a confident expectation in the goodness of god and i know as i'm preparing this message as i have been preparing as i'm delivering it now i know there's many of you in the room and those watching online and right now it's hard for you to read or hear that a confident expectation in the goodness of god because life isn't good for you right now what you're going through isn't good what you're feeling and experiencing isn't good so how can we have hope in the middle of what doesn't or isn't good well you know hope is connected to faith and i want to say to any of you in the room and those watching if you don't have faith in god yet we would love you to explore that maybe you've got questions maybe even before we start thinking about how to keep hope alive let me just introduce a thought to you if there is hope and hope is connected to faith and hope and faith are connected to a person and his name is jesus maybe you've got questions about jesus that's absolutely great we love it that this church is full of people who have questions about jesus and are on that journey and we run something here called the alpha course and alpha is all around the world and and right now we're running it online next year we're going to do it in person and online but our next one it starts on monday the 27th of september that's the launch night for alpha monday the 27th of september we would love and i would love to give you an opportunity even right now to sign up for that and i'll show you how you can do that in a moment but before i do that take a look at the screen alpha online is a free course designed to give you the space and time to ask the big and often challenging questions about life faith and meaning from the comfort of your own home no filters just honest discussion alpha online is made up of a film series which are designed to create conversations around topics such as how can i pray who is jesus what is the meaning of life why is there suffering in this world each week you will have an opportunity to watch a short video and then chat about it with a small group of people who like you are also grappling with life's big questions and no question is off limits to attend an alpha online all you have to do is sign up and then join a weekly online call all from the comfort of your home everything else is taken care of by your host so feel free to pour yourself a drink get comfy get your laptop ready and you are good to go what have you got to lose try alpha online you know our hope and our faith have got foundations they're based on something and in fact early on in lockdown just this thought just come to my head there was a lady that contacted us not from this church but but she was watching us online and she'd been going to church for decades decades she was in her 80s and didn't realize the reality of the hope and the basis of the hope for her faith and she came to that realization in lockdown through watching us online and maybe that you you've got questions about that i would love you to join alfie people are already signing up for it you can do it a couple of ways you can go on our website uh and you can sign up for it there or if you've got a phone mobile phone you can text lcc alpha and your name to 60 triple seven and then you'll get a link back so that's lcc alpha and your name to 60 7. but you know we want to talk this morning about hope hope can be really hard not only to find but to keep alive and so what i want to talk to you about today is three ways to keep hope alive but before i kind of dive into that i want to set a context for you and we're going to look at a few verses in a book in the old testament which is the first half of the bible and the book is called lamentations okay and how many of you are excited about looking at the book of lamentations even the name of it but i want to give you a bit of background and context it's around 586 bc and uh israel is besieged by enemies they're about the babylonians are coming they're about to plunder the temple take away the bronze the gold the silver they're going to take people away into captivity only leave a remnant a small few left and a prophet jeremiah did not have a fun-filled ministry okay a lot of jeremiah's life and leadership and was really really difficult and he they think most scholars think that jeremiah wrote uh lamentations there's some controversy about that but i'm gonna say that he did okay at the moment uh that's where we're gonna go and he is looking at the scene of his world and he begins to write into this and he begins to write with a real sense of reality but also he discovers some hope so let's look it's lamentations chapter 3 and verse 19. he says it's the thought of my awful suffering and homelessness is bitter beyond words you see he's looking at what's happening in his world in his city in his nation and he's realizing that that this is gonna get worse okay and then he says i'll never forget this awful time as i grieve over my loss and can i just pause and say i know as hepasta and as a person that this has been an incredibly painful season for all of us maybe you haven't lost a person but but you've lost some stuff during this season for some of you here in this room and watching online you you know it's like the most awful time you can ever remember and you identify immediately with what jeremiah is saying i'll never forget this awful time as i grieve over my life but then there's a turn look at this yet i still dare to hope isn't that a great phrase come on yet i still dare to hope when i remember this the faithful love of the lord never ends his mercies never cease great is his faithfulness his mercies begin afresh each morning gotta say guys that some of the most beautiful lines in the whole of the scripture the reality of pain and grief and loss he never denies or pretends or tries to cover over he faces it and yet he finds hope incredible and the key word in that scripture is actually the word remember you see remember is a covenant word it means go over again and again and again call it to mind and keep remembering go over it again and again you see hope springs from truth rehearsed hope springs from truth rehearse you see here's the reality okay hope does not come from circumstances hope comes from what you know to be true despite circumstances so those of you in the room are watching online whenever or wherever you're watching it and you think well my circumstances aren't hopeful that's not what hope's about hope's not based in your circumstances hopes based is based in what is true despite your circumstances and so i want to suggest to you that the way we reset our lives in the series of hope the way we bring hope into our lives and the way we keep it alive we've got to be real about what's happening and really passionate about holding on to hope i know lots of christians who hold on to hope by denying what's happening by trying to ignore what's happening by trying to pretend that they're not sick when they are sick by trying to to say oh it's fine when it's not fine that's not the way we're going to keep hope alive you see what what jeremiah does is is this is the worst thing that's ever happened in his life but he faces it and the bible says he laments and the word lament literally means he expresses grief and sorrow sometimes even in a physical way lament means see what jeremiah does is he laments over grief and loss so should we but what jeremiah does is he finds hope in the middle of grief and loss so can we and you know last year a friend of ours a guy called phil knox who works for evangelical alliance he just lives up the road actually and he's a passionate villa fan so he's all right and he knows a lot about lamenting all right because he's a villa fan like i did he wrote a spoken word around the whole pandemic called lament and and some of the language of this is going to take us back a little bit okay and we're moving forward but i like it because it's real it's true and right at the end he brings that scripture in again so what we're going to do this morning is we're going to take a little minute at the end of this just to pause and to stand with our world and with our nation because there's a lot to remember isn't that we remember those nearly 3 000 people who lost their lives in 911 and all of those subsequently we remember the situation in afghanistan the natural disasters those that have lost people through covered we're just going to take a moment to say jesus lord in your mercy would you remember them this is called lament [Music] [Applause] [Music] when rumors of a virus turn to evening government updates when headlines move to daily news of fresh infection growth rates when schools are closed and holidays postponed everyone's asking who's been furloughed a slight change of plans just wash your hands it's like the flu remember let's stay at home do pee with joe it'll be over by september how long oh lord [Music] when streets resemble ghost towns at peak lock down regulation when we crave a crowd cry out for connection from full-blown isolation when millions search for online church with newfound innovation everything's online but getting low roll is a hassle and trust in powers eroded by trips to barnard castle it all ends in tears there's no quick fix when you're a table of seven but there's a rule of six how long oh lord when our dreams are dashed ambitions strangled christmas plans destroyed and a righteous anger rises at the murder of george floyd and when families are asked to grieve behind masks graves of precious loved ones past life is in limbo we're stuck in between herd immunity or miracle vaccine 2020 short change by covid19 and children can't get the food that they need how long oh lord with ever-growing numbers of the daily deaths presented when this is the new normal when what life was like lamented and will people stop using the word unprecedented we are zoomed out homeschooled out restrictions extended and those we love die unattended how long oh lord [Music] i've been deprived of peace i've forgotten what prosperity is so i say my splendor is gone and all that i'd hoped for from the lord and my soul is downcast within me [Music] and yet this i call to mind and therefore i have hope because of the lord's great love we are not consumed for his compassions never fail they are new every morning correct is your faithfulness [Music] i know we don't normally do this here but let's just take a moment and maybe when you're watching wherever you're watching from here in the room you guys at rao let's take a moment just remember stand with those who who have lost so much maybe you have lord we we remember today and lord we we say god would you in your grace and in your mercy comfort those who need it the most today whether that's in our own little circle of life or whether it's on the global scale lord we recognize that as a community as a community of humanity this has been maybe the most tumultuous couple of years that many of us have ever known and lord we ask you in your mercy in your mercy would you remember us and god would you shower us with comfort and strength and with peace and maybe even here in this room or someone watching maybe in their own lives may they in the middle of grief and loss may they know that there is still hope in jesus name amen how do we keep hope alive let me just give you three ideas today and hopefully as we then worship and respond at the end uh this is something that you can go away with the first one is this remember the hope is sustained by story and song as many of you know i was on kind of sabbatical for july and august and read loads of books and i read three books i read lots more than that but i read three that i didn't think were connected but they really were and they were all um one was written by a west indian cricketer one was written by one of the most famous african-american preachers on the planet td jakes and one was written by bishop michael curry who officiated at the wedding of harry and megan and so they all seemed disparate books but all of them spoke about the story and the struggle of what it means to be black and of their history and of b.a.m.e issues etc etc as you know that's come really through the fore in this couple of months and and i'm kind of as white as they come so i don't i wanted to learn i wanted to listen and i wanted to learn and i have to tell you guys my mind and my heart has been totally rocked and i've only got a few minutes to speak today so i'm going to need to be really careful because there's so much i want to say but as i read these books and as i listened and hopefully tried to learn the story of communism what it's like to grow in a community where actually you know and talk about privilege and you know your privilege if you don't have to pull up with racism every single day of your life so i know that i'm privileged but when i looked at some of this stuff i was absolutely blown away you see we think slavery was caused by racism but actually slavery wasn't caused by racism slavery is a symptom of racism and what many of us didn't know is that actually slavery was abolished in like 1833 officially in britain but but reparations were made in other words money was paid to the slave owners who'd lost their their their kind of product which was human beings and the british alone and i'm british and kind of proud to be british sometimes but not when i read things like this it was 300 billion pounds worth in our money now that was paid back and most of us don't know the money has only just stopped being paid back in 2015 and what many of us don't realize is that you know the average family in the us the average black average white family is 10 times got 10 times more net worth than the average black family why is it that the color of your skin will impact on your educational achievement on your ability to stay out of prison and all these things it's just why is it that when when when a when a black footballer in our country buys his mom a house he's a show-off but when a white footballer buys his mama house he's a good son why is it and if you're bristling at that and if you're reacting to that i want to suggest that's because we don't kind of understand what it's like for other people you know as i read all of this stuff you know why is jesus always portrayed as white when he clearly wasn't why do we still keep saying that columbus discovered america when he clearly didn't because there were hundreds of thousands of people who've been there for hundreds and thousands of years he might have discovered it for the europeans but he didn't discover it it was already there and there were people already there why is it that in australia it took till 1967 before indigenous australians were declared human beings prior to 1967 they weren't listed on any senses as human beings you see you and i who maybe have never lived with the reality of this don't understand what it's like to live and to be in this kind of background but here's the thing as i read these different books as they talked about history they talked about their experience you know what came over out of the page all the time all the time all the time hope hope and hope emerges out of these kind of communities and it's best expressed and sustained and kept alive by story and by song and i've been blown away at the power of this usain bolt who you know usain bolt is one of the fastest man on the planet i want to keep preaching love and hope that we can see something change and these two amazing amazing ladies black poets may angelo and amanda gorman both spoke at the inauguration of president so amanda gorman in 2021 listen to some of the words she said in this truth in this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future history has its eyes on us this is the era of just redemption we feared at its inception we did not feel prepared to be heirs of such a terrifying hour but within it we found the power to author a new chapter to offer hope and laughter to ourselves so while once we asked how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe now we assert how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us these are words of hope that something could change maya angelou this isn't what she said at the inauguration but this is one of the one of the one of her writings which just blows me away and it's this still i rise and you've got to listen out of the background out of the history out of the story the power of hope emerges she says this out of the hots of history shame i rise up from a past that's rooted in pain i rise i'm a black ocean leaping and wide welling and swelling i bear in the tide leaving behind nights of terror and fear i rise into a daybreak that's wondrously clear i rise bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave i am the dream and the hope of the slave i rise i rise i rise guys i want to say that because i'm so excited that that the culture of our church the earth the diversity of our church is changing and if you're here and you're not white like me we love you and we are so grateful that you're here i'm part of this church and we mess up towards you we say things that are uh we listen when we do that we apologize that is not our intent that is not our intent but we are passionate about wanting to see a multi-generational multicultural expression of humanity with jesus in the center who breaks every barrier doesn't he of race and gender and color and all of that and we need hope and hope is sustained through story and so hope springs from truth rehearsed the word remember we remember that's why the these kind of the communities that i've been talking about they've got such a lot of hope because they go over and over and over the stories and the songs and it sustains the hope in fact michael curry in his book he says stories are the song of the soul sung in the language of life i love that stories of the song of the soul sung in the language of life and you know when when the um uh um uh jews that jeremiah was was with at the time when they were taken into captivity the bible says they they stopped singing and they hung their instruments on the harps it says it psalm 137 oh how could we ever sing god's song in this wasteland if i ever forget you jerusalem let my fingers wither and fall off like leaves let my tongue swell and turn black if i fail to remember you if i fail oh dear jerusalem to honor you as my greatest and it's like like they stop singing and when you stop singing you lose your hope when you top stop telling the stories and when you stop singing the songs you lose your hope that's why the bible time and time again says go over the stories remember what god has done because when you're in a difficult situation and the circumstances suck you need to remind yourself that hope is not found in circumstances hope is found in the truth despite the circumstances guys that's why singing together is so important how many of you enjoyed singing together in these last couple of weeks you know and taking the mask off and hearing each other and you know what when we sing it doesn't mean that life is great and it doesn't mean that you feel great and i know that there are some of you here in this room and singing the songs at the moment is incredibly hard and i think if she won't mommy mention that vicky one of our worship leaders and lost her sister a few years ago and and having to try and sing song and it's really hard really hard and some of you singing songs i remember um someone in that church lost their daughter at the age of seven and saying i come to church but i can't sing and all i can do is stand in the way of god i can't sing but i stand in the way of god and eventually she could sing but here's the power when we sing we remind ourselves who god is even when life is not and we remind ourselves what god can do even when life looks like it can't and so what we do is we speak to that hope and we encourage that and so i want to ask you what stories are you telling yourself right now and what songs are you singing because stork because hope is is sustained by story and by song number two number two remember hope is willing to wait i'm not but hope is and if we want us if we want to keep hope alive we've got to remember perspective is so key i love these words read them so many times the last couple of years from two corinthians four this is from the passion translation perspective it says paul says this we view our slight short-lived troubles in the light of eternity we see our difficulties as the substance that produces for us an eternal weighty glory far beyond our comparison because we don't focus our attention on what is seen but what is unseen for what is seen is temporary but the unseen realm is eternal and so when you're in a situation guys and many of you might be right now where it doesn't look great maybe you've lost something or someone maybe you're in the middle of pain i i don't know what it is and it doesn't feel to you like you can no hope you can but we have to remember hope is willing to wait you know the cape of good hope is that south africa where when the ships were sailing south is when they start to turn eastward and the cape of good hope used to be called the cape of storms and it was called the cape of storms because all the sailors just like hit storms but eventually it would change the name was changed from the cape of good storms to the cape of good hope because eventually sailors worked out how to get through it isn't that powerful and hope isn't about the absence of storms it's about knowing that you will get through it eventually you'll come through it that's about perspective so what are you going through right now and can i just say for those of you who know god this world is as bad as it gets it will only get better for those of you who don't know god this world is as good as it gets which is why it's so important that this side of eternity we make sure we're connected to god because if you know god guys this world is as good as it gets it's only getting better but if you don't know god this world is as good as it gets now if you do know him sorry this world is as bad as it gets we're only getting better in the future but if you don't know god this is it this is it and there's no sense beyond that so what are you going through right now do you need a shift of perspective and number three remember hope is hard to find alone hope is hard to find you know there's a guy in the bible it's one of my favorite stories we've talked about it quite a lot i think over the last couple of years and he's a guy called elijah and he finds himself really where he's lost hope and he's lost hope so much that he he ends up saying to the guy he's traveling with hey you wait i'm heading into the desert on my own and he goes into the desert and he sits down under a tree and he says these words i've had enough i want to die and unfortunately we know the reality now don't we that mental health is a huge issue facing our planet in fact depression is now the biggest single killer on the planet overtaking cancer and here's the reality in 2017 a united nations world health day there was a statement which suggested depression is less about chemical imbalances but more about imbalances in the way that we live our lives a guy a psychologist called stephen hilardy wrote we were never designed for the sedentary socially isolated sleep deprived poorly nourished indoor frenetic pace of modern life and we're realizing aren't we that that all is not well but when you go back to the story of elijah you see this guy that ends up in a cave and he ends up in a cave all on his own and he is what mental health often does to all of us and what tough times do for us they cause us to retreat from relationships so we end up in a cave all on our own and when you end up in a cave all on your own that cave becomes an echo chamber and the only words you hear are your words and what happens then is that you lose hope why because you accept your feelings as facts you're harder on yourself than you ought to be you exaggerate the negative and you lose perspective you know the first problem mentioned in the bible was not sin but isolation because god created adam and he says you know what it's not good for man to be alone even before sin there was i said no so i'm going to create someone else because hope is hard to find alone guys i want to say in this season as we move into reset i know i was at a barbecue last night we were chatting with some people saying this feels a bit weird it's like like people all around you know and i know that for many of us and maybe some of you watching the thought of being around people is still challenging because of kobe i get that but it's not just covered that we've got a fight it's the fact that maybe we've been reset in ways socially and i want to say if you're going to be healthy and if you're going to have a faith and a hope that is going to be a reservoir of resilience you're not going to find it on your own guys we need each other we all need people that we can be real with that we can laugh with and cry with and can partner with us and pray for us and sharpen us and encourage us and in your connect group some of those people in your connect group and i won't look over here because some of my connect group over here they do your heading but do you know what i won't look they're god's gift to you i'm not gonna look they are god's gift to you because actually in that space in that space you grow and you develop and god says smiles he got smiles when he sees that you know what i mean and he says you're tempted just to back out but if you'll stay in there and open your life up enough you'll find gifts of treasure and beauty that i have for you and you know i i love this and and here's the interesting thing after the cave experience we never read of elijah ever being alone again he's always with elisha we were never and so i've got a piece of wisdom for you all right and you want to write this down it is so profound and deep i mean this church is so profound and deep this has been proved by research by spiritual psychological medical and everything you want to write this down here it is it's healthier to eat donuts with good friends than broccoli on your own there you go it's not often i get a clap in a sermon but i got one for donuts but the truth is it's like we all we're all health crazy and i get that but relational health guys is so so important and i can say absolutely under my heart it's been other people have helped me find hope it's been other people and i i am heartbroken when people come to a point where they think there's nobody that can help them and they think that there's only one way out and i want to say to you if you're watching now or later and you're that person please ask for help we might have any words but we can be there in your cave with you there's a season to be in a cave on your own that's right but a season is a season ain't your life we're not meant to be living in those caves i want to just talk to you as i come to land about this guy here victor franco victor franco if you know the story was um an austrian uh jew and uh in his mid-thirties was married and then the second world war breakout broke out and he was a very very bright guy and uh he was sent to a concentration camp and his wife was forced to abort the baby and then they were split up and later he hears that his wife his mother his brother his brother's wife were all killed but but he looks at prisoners and he looks at the whole issue of hope and he made his life work to study hope and and in 1946 uh he wrote his first book on psychology of prisoners in war camp in 1948 was a phd in philosophy he married again and he had a daughter and he made it his life's work to help people find and sustain hope and there were three big ideas out of his writings and there were this everyone needs to do some kind of meaningful work and he talks a lot about the fact that you know we have means to live by but nothing to live for do you know what i mean like like we have stuff but but but we're not living for anything and it's so important that we do some meaningful work and then the second big idea was everyone needs a community of friends because it's not good to be alone god says that's not how we're wired and then thirdly everyone needs to take whatever suffering they experience and find something positive from it and i want to suggest you guys to take a picture of that because that's so important in it you know so so what about meaningful work what about that community of friends what about the circumstances experience i'm going through can i take something positive from it because by then i'm going to sustain and you god are going to help me sustain hope so what about you as we come into land what about you where are you at when it comes to hope right now where are you at when it comes to sustaining hope when it comes to to that keeping hope alive when it comes to being fueled by hope because as i read the stories of these communities that are so inspiring to me and i've got many friends from these communities who are sick to the death and sick to the spirit of still having to battle the racism that they're having to battle and they've had to battle as a people for centuries and we're all fed up of it but the hope that is sustained is powerful it's powerful so so maybe for you it's story and song maybe for you you stop singing the songs maybe for you you've stopped telling the stories reminds them maybe for you actually a way of keeping hope alive is rehearsing the truth because hope springs from truth rehearsed or maybe for you it's just a shift of perspective and remember the hope is willing to wait and the cape of storms can become the cape of good hope because i'm going to get through it or maybe for you is to remember the hope is hard to find alone and maybe you've backed away from relationships but actually now is the season for a reset now is the season for a reset i want to pray let's pray together i just wonder here in the room maybe online as well maybe you're online and you're watching right now and you'd love someone to pray for you i'm going to ask our guys just to pop the prayer response in the chat and someone would love to pray for you you can fill that in right now we will pray for you and we do pray for you by name every single one of you that puts a request in but maybe there's some people in the room and you know that you're in danger of losing hope and so if that's you i want to ask you to stand right now okay the camera's not coming on you this is just between you and god but you know that you're in danger of losing hope i want you just to be bold enough and brave enough just to stand right where you are i want to pray for you thank you so much is there anyone else in the room and you just say god i just need your help just to stand with me it takes bravery and courage to do that but i believe god meets us in that moment god i want to pray for all these folks standing right now god would you bring them hope sustain their hope may they know that hope isn't the circumstances it's the truth that exists besides the circumstances and god would they know your presence i pray in jesus name amen can we all stand can we all stand and i want to invite us to worship jesus together you know we um when i was a kid growing up we used to sing choruses does anyone remember a chorus don't do choruses now in fact they call tags now because that's cooler all right but i remember as a kid we used to think i'm used to seeing this one called the steadfast love of the nor lord never ceased it don't remember that his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning new everyone great is your favorite it's really short but sometimes when we sing the same kind of lines of truth over and over again that's where hope springs from hope springs from truth rehearsed but we're going to sing a song that we've been learning in the last couple of years called the goodness of god and when you put those two thoughts together the faithfulness of god that's new every morning it is about the goodness of god hope is a confident expectation in the goodness of god and listen some of you will find it hard to sing it because of your circumstances if you do that's not fake that's faith because it's true whether you feel it or not that's how you sustain hope let's worship [Music] i love you a all your lot never fails me all my days i've been held in your hands from the moment [Music] of the goodness of god [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is foreign is is is every day [Music] all my life you have been faithful [Music] oh i will see [Music] [Applause] foreign me [Music] so [Music] this steadfast love of the lord never sees us his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning new every morning great is thy faithfulness [Music] [Music] jesus his mercies never come to an end they are new every morning [Music] [Music] is [Music] my [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] the steadfast love of the lord never sees us his mercies never [Music] new every morning great is their faithfulness oh lord grace [Music] [Music] is [Music]

Channel: LifecentralChurchUK

Views: 897

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: church, meaning, purpose, life, calling, lifestyle, Jesus, God, Spiritual Growth, God’s wisdom, Make better decisions, faith, decisions, peace, covid-19, coronavirus, worship, giving people hope, evangelism, telling people about jesus, good news, latest news, Sunday, hope, lockdown, jesus, why do christian believe in Jesus?, Church, life central church, lifeCentral, my next step, online ministry, how too keep hope alive, faith hope love, positivity from suffering, encouragement

Id: 1RrsF1XFpzM

Length: 50min 9sec (3009 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021