Fr. Mike Schmitz - Hope Does not Disappoint (Steubenville Florida/Steubenville Live 2020)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] we pray no i don't want to pray i don't want to pray father it's may we pray can i go to the bathroom i don't know can you okay let's pray if you have a cap decapitate in the name of the father son holy spirit amen father in heaven give you praise and glory thank you so much for this for the music that praises your name thank you so much for giving us uh the ability to to stand in your presence and the ability to stand in our homes to be able to stand in this place wherever we are we know that you are lord because you want to be with us you draw near to us you're the god who has promised i will be with you until the end of the age and we know we can trust in every one of your promises lord tell us to walk in your promise help us to to to live and abide in your promise help us to have courage and confidence and hope in your promise mary our mom please pray for us joseph the universal patron of the church please pray for us in the name of the father son holy spirit and amen oh gosh you guys okay so um i wanted to lead off this whole kind of this session the sessions you might be i've already seen it's called hope does not disappoint um and i know that i've been thinking a lot over the course of the last i don't know four or five months about disappointment um as you may or may not know i work on a college campus and we we took a bunch of our students maybe like 30 of our students to israel for spring break and it was going to be this incredible trip like trip of a lifetime kind of a situation and um so they fundraised we prepared we did all this stuff to get um set and we took off from the united states we landed in israel on sunday morning and sunday afternoon the prime minister of israel said that they were closing the borders and no one could come in as of like that thursday and so we were like whoa oh because there was a virus i don't know if you guys knew okay just context and so i appreciate the laugh so um have you ever tried laughing without moving your face it's a good thing to learn how to do when you have masks on so just like just i wanna i wanna i wanna creep you all out but here's how you do it it's so weird isn't it okay back to our story so we land sunday morning at sunday afternoon they say everyone has to go home basically so we scrambled to get on planes like two and a half days later i'm on a plane flying back to the united states and then i'm thinking well our freshmen i'll get to know them the second half of the semester they were gone sophomores good thing to build with them juniors the seniors who had this entire i don't know if any of you lost your senior year this past couple months but here's these seniors in college who some of them were in sports that were just about to wrap up some of they were some of them were in sports they were just about to start imagine you had this exact experience you had prepared for re you rehearsed a bunch for a recital you prepared a bunch for this play for this concert for this tournament for this season and then it's just gone and it is really easy in that moment to be disappointed and it's not wrong to be disappointed like to experience that disappointment is actually a natural thing it's completely normal and have that be difficult to have had a difficult last number of months or even for many of us the last number of years maybe this entire lifetime has been tough to experience that disappointment is not abnormal to be saddened by missing out on what you had longed for is not like unchristian that as catholic christians when we when we lose someone we can grieve when we lose opportunities we can grieve but as saint paul says we don't grieve like the rest what i found was in the last couple months what's happened in the midst of disappointment what's happened in the midst of loss what's happened in the midst of grief is my own heart has been revealed to me i don't know if this has happened to you but my own heart has been revealed to me what was revealed what was revealed was these were the things in which i placed my hope like i had hoped i hope that that april will be like this i'd hope that may would be like i had hoped that in june i would do all these things i and what happened was my sadness the depth of my sadness the depth of my grief the depth of my loss revealed where i had placed my hope another way to say it is what's happened in this last number of months has revealed my idols you know there's certain relationships in our lives that um you can have with anybody like for example if you have like two people i don't know if how many of you are going off to college who have been off to college or something like this or maybe you're done with high school you're gonna go to work and get a live body move out of your parents house and you wanna have um roommates like roommates are not it's kind of a non-exclusive relationship right you can have roommates with one person roommates with like let's have three roommates that's even better because we have to pay even less you know to pay for the rent when it comes to family you could have to be the only child you could have a bunch of siblings and that's that's you can share those you can share your parents that's awesome it's wonderful but there's some relationships in life that doesn't tolerate that don't tolerate live rivals some relationships in our lives they don't tolerate having competition because it's one thing again to say like okay we have the two of us are roommates let's get a third roommate no problem it's a completely different thing for a husband and wife to say there's two of us in this let's bring in a third i think it's a whole different situation because there are some relationships right there are some relationships that do not tolerate rivals that to bring in another person would not add to the fun add to the joy add to the love like another child but would actually destroy the relationship it would destroy what the relationship was supposed to be in the first place my little sister just had her fifth child at the beginning of the pandemic and i love seeing it's it's her first boy before that she and her husband have four little girls and i love seeing how these girls are just like all over little james they just they take care of him like crazy they love him he adds to the love here that's a situation where another person not a rival that person adds to the love adds to the joy but again just to hammer on the point it would be different if my sister and her husband invited someone else into their marriage that would destroy it and when the lord god comes into our lives he doesn't just want to be one among many that our relationship with jesus is exclusive what that means is he's either sent the center of our lives or he's not really in our lives he's either the heart of our life or he's not even really part of our life either he's everything in our life or he's essentially nothing in our lives now the way to say it is this our relationship with jesus is the kind that does not tolerate rivals our relationship with god is one that doesn't tolerate having any rivals and so in the last couple months our disappointment reveals something it reveals that we're normal of course it reveals that we have interests other than just god obviously no problem but the degree to our grief the degree to the depth of our grief what that reveals is it reveals to the degree to which jesus has a rival for our hope in our lives does that make sense because i gotta tell you like if if i had missed out on my senior year in high school my everything in my everything since i was in seventh or eighth grade until i was a senior in high school was all about track and field it was all about track and field like everything i did year round was about track and field and if i had that taken away from me that would have been someone taking away my heart because why because i had made track my idol track was god's chief rival for my heart because i had placed my hope in that so the last couple weeks last couple months that's revealed it's revealed the depths of our hearts revealed whatever god's chief rival has been for our heart for our soul it's i think this is the reveal of our heart and so we have this disappointment and yet at the same time that seems silly so what i mean here's what i mean by this here's what i mean i mean that when it comes to life isn't it interesting that we all have expectations like we just here for example i had expected that this year would be i'd take this group of people to israel we'd have an incredible time we would come back and we just continued to grow we just continued to like and then may would happen and they would go home and i would go do my stuff and then come back in august i just expected that's how it goes because once you know life starts rolling along it's like oh i know what happens now i mean even like thinking about this conference is so unique right because it's kind of different than every other conference you've ever been to if you've ever been to a conference and so you knew what to expect and then when it's not exactly how you expect it it's kind of like i don't know if i like this why because i expected it to be different why do you expect it to be different be different because that's what we do we just put expectations on tops of things and then when the expectation doesn't come true we get disappointed it's one of the reasons why i will always maintain this i will always maintain that expectation is a killer of joy can i get an amen expectation is a killer of joy because why because i thought when i got in my vocation it'd be like this and it's not i'm not and i'm sad why would you think it would be like this i don't know i just thought it would be did you have any reason to believe it would be like that no i just thought it would be like that i thought that when i went to florida it would be like did mickey be on every corner he's not why why aren't you living up to my expectation did you were you promised that mickey would be in every corner no i just expected he would be there expectation is a killer of joy i thought that if i got married it would be like this but it's not why do you think it would be like that i don't know because i'm dumb i thought that if i followed jesus then every day would be sunshine and rainbows and butterflies and bunnies and steak for every meal like i thought that would be that's except for fridays i get it but like other than friday i expected it to be like this why did you expect that i don't know i thought that's what it meant for god to be faithful to his promises for god to be faithful to his promises means i get what i want isn't that what it means let's look at one of the first promises of god is go back in genesis genesis chapter 12 genesis chapter 11 you have the story of the call of abram abraham later on god changes his name to abraham exactly bible scholars um god changed his name to abraham but at this point his name is abram and god steps into abram's life and he says this to abram he says genesis chapter 12 the lord said to abram go forth from the land of your kinfolk and from your father's house to a land that i will show you so god hasn't revealed himself really to anybody at this point but he goes to abram and says okay go from what everything you know to everything you don't know go from where you know to where you don't know go from what you know to what you don't know go from a place of certainty to a place of uncertainty see this is so good you guys this is what's called life this is what's called christianity here's the lord god inviting us from a place of certainty to a place of uncertainty to a place you're like no i know it's good i know what's happening tomorrow and happen to the next day to a place of like i don't know what's going to happen this is god's call to abram go from the land of your forefathers the land that you know the land of certainty the land of stability and go to a place of insecurity go to a place of uncertainty go to a place of instability and god makes a promise here's his promise his promise is and here's what i will do i'll make of you a great nation i will bless you here's three promises i'll make your name great you'll be a blessing to the world i'll bless those who bless you curse those who curse you the communities of the earth shall find their blessing in you in those those words are three promises god makes to abram one make of you a great nation two give you land three through you the whole world will be blessed all you have to do is leave what you know go to a place you don't know go from a place of security to a place of insecurity and i promise you i'll make of you a great nation i'll give you land and through you the whole world will be blessed so abram goes abram went and then roughly three verses later or maybe six verses later abram leaves he leaves the land of his fathers and he goes to israel what's now known as israel and it's very very short right couple six verses but then it says there was a severe famine in the land so abram went down to egypt now i think sometimes when we imagine following jesus following the lord god here's god who comes to abraham directly like that would be really really nice sometimes i have to be like god is this where you want me to go okay i'll take the step i think this is where good good good okay here we go god said to abram abram go from here to there okay good and he gets there and the next thing the scripture says happens is the severe famine hits the land so abram has to go to egypt for his life you imagine here he is with all these people all these flocks this whole family that he's brought with them from a place they didn't know to a place they placed that did know it's a place they don't know and all of a sudden now there's pain so often again gosh you guys so often we think we expect if i start following jesus he's going to give me what i want that it's going to be like completely smooth sailing and i'll know what comes next but that's not faith and that's not hope that's not faith and that's not hope the very first thing that happens to abram when he leaves what he knows to what he doesn't know is he and everyone he loves almost dies and i imagine abram be like what the heck god are you kidding me like you promised land a nation and through me you'd bless the world god's like well no no no i didn't promise you i'd do it this year i didn't promise you i'd do this like even in your lifetime i will do it but what do we say but god i want to know how you'll do it god i want to know when you'll do it god i need to know that you promised me that you'll do it in a way that i want you to do it and then i'll trust you do we realize that that's not actually trust that's trying to control trusting god is when we say okay lord i'm going to count on your promise and on nothing else trusting god as we say god i'm accounting your promise and on nothing else so i'm going to hold you to your promise and to nothing else again we talked about disappointment i've been disappointed so many times in my life i have to tell you the truth i don't think this is ever i don't think i've ever been disappointed in god i don't think i've ever been disappointed in god or i'm going to say it like this i don't think i've ever been disappointed by god it's not because god gives me everything i want it's not because god is my like giant like atm in the sky i'm like and i know the code and i have the right pin number so i just put god can i have some of that thank you once again like that's not why it's because i don't ever expect from god what he hasn't promised and i got to give you this this council is this this piece of advice you will experience so much freedom so much joy so much hope if you also never expect from god what he has never promised he never promised me a senior year he never promised me to see my 24th year he never promised me any of those things i want to say like this he never promised me outcomes a lot of times when we have hope quote unquote hope in god what we're really talking about is we have the expectation of a certain outcome when i say i have hope in god sometimes people mistake that to mean that i have the expectation a certain certain expectation of a certain outcome but that is not ever ever what we have hope in because if my hope is based off of an outcome my hope is entirely conditional if my faith is based off a certain circumstance then my fate is circumstantial and i don't know about you but i don't think i can walk through this world with a hope that is conditional or a faith that's circumstantial that if god doesn't give me what i want then i'm not going to have faith in him if god is going to give gonna get going to do what i expect of him even though he's never promised it i'm not going to hope in him what you and i need what we need is we need a faith that is unwavering in fact the letter the author the letter to the hebrews he talks about this he says let us hold unwaveringly to our confession that gives us hope for he who made the promise is trustworthy that word unwaveringly can be a part of your life make that word unwaveringly can be that can actually be a description of you he doesn't say let's hold circumstantially to our confession that gives us hope doesn't say hold let's hold hold um conditionally to the confession that gives us hope let's hold unwaveringly to the to the confession that gives us hope and what is the confession of faith that the author of the hebrews is talking about that through jesus christ we'll be saved that through jesus christ will be saved because that's the promise of god and again i don't know about you but maybe that's not enough for you maybe what you and i really want is not him maybe what you and i want is an outcome maybe what we want more than um his presence in our life maybe what you and i want more than that is certainty again you guys i'm not saying this world is not uncertain this world is completely uncertain but we have to realize god has never ever promised that we would know the next step remember remember when gabriel appears to marry in the book of luke gospel luke remember this you guys were there um yeah what happens is to recap the scene for those of you who weren't old enough yet gabriel comes to mary and says uh hail full of grace what's that mean um he says basically you're gonna be the mother of the messiah and she asks the clarifying question uh how can this be since i have no relations with a man he says oh good clarifying question camper um the power of the most high will overshadow you and the lord god will be incarnate inside of you etcetera etcetera etcetera paraphrasing and mary says what exactly mary says what happens after that gabriel she asked the question what's how is this going to be and gabriel says will the holy spirit will come upon you how almost high will overshadow you therefore the child to be born will be called holy the son of god okay and then well then you're gonna and then i mean here's what happens mary as was just said she says let it be done to me according to thy word she says you have my permission she says yes let it be fiat now what the next line in luke's gospel is after mary says let it be done to me according to thy word the next line luke writes is then the angel departed from her and here she is imagine your 14 15 year old mary just said yeah lord whatever you want now you're pregnant what do i do now here's the thing it's like that's the thing is if i was mary i'd be like no no give me some more details i would want gabriel to say okay here's what you're going to do after you get pregnant you're going to tell joseph he's not going to believe you so you're going to go to visit elizabeth she's already pregnant don't ask why and then you're going to stay with her for six months no longer no no no shorter then you're going to come back and be like wow you're sick some pregnant now and joseph's going to want to put you out of the house but don't worry i'll appear to him and dream to be okay and then you have to go to the census in bethlehem and you'll be nine months pregnant but don't worry to be okay when you get to bethlehem there's not gonna be a place for you to stay but don't worry it'll be okay and you're gonna be jesus could be born in a stable don't worry it'd be okay and then herod is gonna try to kill a baby don't worry it'd be okay then you're gonna have to go to egypt for a bunch of years but don't worry it'll be okay and then when he grows up he's gonna lose him in the temple for three days don't worry he'll be okay and then when he's 30 years old he's gonna start this ministry and people want to kill him don't worry he'll be okay and then after a while they will kill him but don't worry it'll be okay like this is what i want i would want that from gabriel right thank you i can speak very very quickly when i want to but that's what i would want i wouldn't want just tell me the next thing but that wasn't the promise of god if mary would have needed to know the next thing her hope would be circumstantial her hope would be conditional what god wanted from her was a hope that was unconditional you don't need to know how i'm going to do this you just need to know who i am you don't need to know how i'm going to accomplish this all you need to know is that i'm going to be there here's what hope is hope is not a wish hope is not a good feeling hope is trust hope is trust in god extended into the future say abram go from what you know to what you don't know what's going to happen do you trust me yes well then when you get there i'll be there mary will you be the mother of the messiah what's gonna happen you don't need to know all you need to know is that i'll be there i'm calling you from this place of high school to this place of college or this place of the military the place of life what's gonna happen there lord you don't need to know all you need to know is that i'm going to be there too often we have this expectation the expectation of a promise that god never ever made unless we're mature in our faith unless we have unconditional hope unless we actually know you guys unless we actually know the promises of jesus because these are the promises of jesus jesus promised he said when you pray no one else might see it i promise you your father sees it that when you walk through this world and you feel like no one notices you you tried to do the right thing and no one even cared i promise you your father sees it and he cares jesus promises if you're going to follow me here's what i need you to do i need you to pick up your cross deny yourself daily and follow after me jesus's promise is not i'm sending you out as wolves among sheep so destroy them all he says i promise you i'm sending you out as sheep among wolves but i'll be with you the promises of jesus are not if you belong to me you'll get everything you ever wanted promises of jesus are in this world you will have trouble pause my brothers and sisters here is the promise of jesus christ this is what our hope is in it's not in everything's going to work out it's not in you're going to get everything you want it's not you'll never know grief or never no loss is jesus saying in this world you will have loss in this world you will have pain in this world you will have disappointment in this world you will have death in this world every one of you will know trouble but then he says this but take heart take heart in this world will you will you'll get beat up a bunch of times take heart in this world that will not you will kick you in the teeth and not even care take heart then in this world you will have trouble because i have overcome this world jesus is his great promise the great promise of jesus is yes there is a day that will come when every tear will be wiped away yes there is a day that will come when every heart will sing again there is a day when everyone who's lame will be able to run everyone who has died will rise from their graves there is that's part of his promise but now and until that day jesus's promise is this my friends i will be with you always until that day [Music] and into eternity [Music] our hope is not placed in outcomes hope is not based on circumstances or on consequences i hope it's based on this promise that even in your darkest moment your darkest hour your darkest season even the moment when you actually give up your last breath jesus is saying don't be afraid even then because even at that moment i will be there that's where we placed our hope hope is not a wish hope has a name his name is jesus

Channel: Steubenville Youth Conferences

Views: 32,668

Rating: 4.9236946 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Charismatic, Youth Conference, Youth, Conference, Evangelization, Steubenville Conferences, Steubenville, fr. mike schmitz, hope, hope alive, schmitz

Id: nmWEXloc9cU

Length: 29min 7sec (1747 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 18 2020