♪♪♪ Dave Sumrall: Hey everyone,
my name is Dave, and my wife Kate and I
pastor ITOWN Church. Thank you so much
for joining us today. I know it's easy to look at all
that's happening in the world around us and to
really feel hopeless. That's why I love God's Word
because the Bible is filled with stories of hope. You know, just recently,
I brought a message to our church about that subject
from one of our prison campuses called, The Pendleton Correctional
Industrial Facility. It was truly an incredible
experience and I think you'll enjoy the message. Make sure you hang out until the
end because I want to share a very powerful story with you
about a young woman named Kelli, who found hope in
an unlikely place. But first, let's talk
about hope for the past. ♪♪♪ Dave: We are in a series called,
"Hope." Our theme verse is
Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 19. The Bible says that we have this
hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. You see, every one of us
walk through storms in life, we'll all walk
through adversity in life. Trouble is destined for us all,
Jesus never promised to protect us from it. And what happens in the midst of
that is that our souls oftentime get blown by the winds and
the waves of adversity that come to us in life. Our souls determine how we
think, our souls determine how we feel, and our souls
determine what we desire. That's the part of us
that has those functions. So, you are a spirit, that's
the part of you that will live forever somewhere in eternity. You have a soul and
you live in a body, that's that physical part of us. And so, the soul part
of us needs an anchor. In the midst of adversity, if we
have the biblical kind of hope that God has called us to have,
it doesn't matter the storm that's raging around you,
your mind won't go crazy, your emotions won't run wild,
and you won't desire the wrong things. Because that's what
happens to us in life, isn't it? When storms come,
when adversity comes, we start thinking
crazy thoughts. We start desiring
the wrong things, and that always leads
to the wrong actions. We find ourselves way off course
living a life that God never intended for us to live. And so, what we need is
this biblical form of hope, an anchor that in
the midst of crisis, in the midst of adversity, we
have something that holds us secure, something that keeps
us from running wild in life. And that's the kind of hope that
I am praying that God gives us throughout this series. Now, it's not wishful thinking,
it's not just coming up with something crazy
and then demanding that God gives it to us. It's got to be in his will
and it's got to be in his Word, and we're going to talk more
about that. Jot this down
if you're taking notes, hope, our definition is
a confident expectation based on something solid. Hope is a confident expectation. Biblical hope is something
that I know God has promised me. And it's based on the fact
that not only has God made the promise to me, but then
he's also made an oath. You see, the Bible says that
God makes promises to you. All the promises in the Bible
have been given to us if we believe in Jesus. But then on top of that, God
promises to fulfill the promise, the Bible calls that an oath. And so, he actually swears
on himself, God said, "I swear to myself that I'll
bring this to pass in your life. I swear to God that I will bring
this to pass in your life." So, hope is this confident
expectation based on the Creator of the universe
saying, "I'm going to bring this to pass
in your life." Something solid,
it's biblical hope. And so today, I want
to bring you a message about the source
of hopelessness. And there's one thing that
probably brings the most hopelessness into our lives,
and that's our past, the things that we've walked
through in life. Because it's easy for us,
especially as children, to have great hopes and
to have great dreams. And you ask children, "What do
you want to do with your life? What do you dream of becoming?" they have these hopes and dreams
that far exceed most adults. You know why? Because they've never
had their hopes dashed. And so, the difficult thing
for us as adults is to not hope, it's to hope again. It's what do you do when
your life falls apart? What do you do when
something that you hope for, something that you dream
for actually falls through? And you've walked
through tragedy, you've walked through adversity,
and now you have to hope again. My prayer for this message is
that God would touch you and speak to you in a
supernatural way, and that you'll be able to hope
for the life that God still has for you. Because listen, it's never
too late to become who you might've been. It's never too late to become
who you might've been. In God's system,
it's never too late, it's never too late. There's always hope. So, we're going to study this
guy in the book of Lamentations, it's written by a guy
named Jeremiah. Jeremiah was
an Old Testament prophet. Old Testament prophets were
like the pastors of the country. And they would bring words
from God to the people. And so, Jeremiah was a prophet,
he wrote the book of Jeremiah in the Old Testament,
all these really cool prophecies about what God was going to do. But then even as a preacher,
he himself got super depressed, and he wrote a second book
called Lamentations, which means complaining. So, he literally wrote the book
of the Bible called Complaining. And today in Complaining
chapter 3 and verse 19, our text is, "I remember
my affliction, my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I remember them well and my
soul is downcast within me." So, Jeremiah says there are
three things that I walked through in my life that
makes me feel hopeless. Three things that I have walked
through in life that make me depressed, my soul
is downcast within me. The first one is I remember
my affliction. This would represent,
if you're taking notes, jot it down at every campus,
past problems. These are the external forces
that go wrong in our lives that are outside of our control. Every one of us have tragedy,
we have issues in life, we have problems around us. It could've been the
neighborhood you grew up in, or the family that
you were born to, or the people in your world. There's just stuff that happens
to us in life that are outside of our control. And there are issues that
creative incredible problems in our lives. Jeremiah is remembering
the affliction, the uncontrollable pain
of the tragedy of my life that's outside of my hands. Job talked about it. If you remember Job
from Scripture, he's the guy whose life
completely fell apart. This dude was like a
straight up baller. Big time businesses,
super wealthy, big family, and in an instant
everything was gone. His family died, all of his kids
died in a roof that collapsed, all of his crops were burned,
all of his animals were taken, all of his investments
were gone. Overnight, this multibillionaire
literally had nothing. And then his health failed. And the Bible says in Job
chapter 30 and verse 26, "When I hoped for good,
evil came. And when I looked for light,
then darkness came." You see, it's so hard for us,
when we're even walking through tragedy, we get a little--
we just muster a little bit of hope to look for a better
tomorrow and then, man, we just get smacked again. It's difficult for us with
these outside problems for us to overcome because
this affliction. And we remember it,
we dwell on it. I don't know if y'all remember
the show "The Biggest Loser." Anybody ever see,
"The Biggest Loser" show? It's off air now because
of all scandals and the things they were doing, the contestants
behind the scenes and all that stuff, but my wife
and I used to love watching, "The Biggest Loser." If you've never seen it,
it's people who have gotten very overweight going to a camp
where they help them eat the right diet and work out
and do all the kind of things to help them get skinny. And my wife and I
would actually, ironically, watch it every week
with a plate of cookies in bed. And so, we watch these people
get in shape while we were getting less in shape,
and it was a lot of fun. But there was this one
contestant I'll never forget, her name was Abby. And Abby was living
a normal life when, one day, her husband,
her five year old daughter, and her two and a half week old
son were broadsided by a semi truck, and all three
of them instantly gone. And that tragedy,
that outside occurrence, that affliction just
shipwrecked her life. And in a moment, everything that
she loved was taken from her, and she didn't know
where to turn. And so, obviously the fallout
of that was that she lost her health, she got incredibly
unhealthy and incredibly overweight 'cause she was
in so much pain. And there are many of us that
have walked through things like that in life, where
something that you loved, something that you cared for,
something you cared about was taken from you. It's hard to get past. It's hard to have hope
when you close your eyes and that's what you remember. Jeremiah said, "The second thing
that keeps me from hoping is my wandering. I remember my wandering." That represents, jot it down
if you're taking notes, my mistakes, past mistakes. Every one of us have made
mistakes in our past. I'm sure all of us here would
love to go back in time and have a do-over for a couple
things we did in life, couple of decisions
that we made. Wouldn't it be great
to have a do-over? And so, we think through the
past mistakes and we think, "Man, look at my life,
and I feel trapped by my mistakes and the things
that I've done. I feel like it's defining
my future. I feel like it's keeping me
from living life." Job said it this way in Job 27,
"What hope has the godless when he is cut off, when God
takes away his life?" Now, that's bad theology, he's
just mad at God at this point. He's just fussing. He's feeling like
God's abandoned him. And sometimes you feel that way. When you've made
mistakes in life, when we walk away from God, we
take control of our own lives and we make our own decisions
and try to make our own future. Oftentimes, it falls through and
we find ourselves in the ruins of our lives feeling like, man,
I'll always be defined by the things that I've done. I'll always be trapped by
the mistakes in my past. The last thing that Jeremiah
identified that was making him depressed and keeping him
hopeless was the bitterness and the gall. Bitterness and gall
only come from people. So, that's past relationships. We all have past problems,
we all have made past mistakes, but some of us have
past relationships. It could be a friendship
that fell apart, it could be a person that
walked out of our lives, a marriage that fell apart. Job said it this way
in Job 19, verse 19, "All my intimate friends
detest me. And those I love have turned
against me." You know, people are tough. And sometimes, we walk
through times when people that we care about betray us. And people that we thought
had our backs and they didn't, people we thought
we can count on and they weren't there for us. And that messes you up. It's hard to look back over
your life and reconcile that. It's hard to have hope
for the future, it's hard to place your trust
in another person when you've been
let down like that. And some of you have a difficult
time 'cause people have trouble letting things go. God forgives and God restores,
but sometimes people hang on to stuff. And yet, we're supposed
to have this hope, this trust in God that's
an anchor for the soul. How in the world
do we hope in God, how do we put our hope
in people, how do we put our hope for a better future
when we have this past that says, "No, you'll never
move past the things that you've done. You'll never be free from
the life that you once lived." What does that look like for us? Well, as we continue
in our verse, remember Lamentations, the
book of Complaining chapter 3, Jeremiah says, "I'm remembering
all these things and my soul is downcast
within me." In verse 21, he says,
"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're new every morning,
great is your faithfulness." There's three things I want you
to see here that will help you have hope for the past, to help
you place hope in the future that God has for your life. Number one, if you're
taking notes, jot it down, the first thing you have to do
is refocus your mind. Jeremiah says, "I've been
thinking about all the things that I've done wrong. I've been thinking about all
the people that let me down. I've been thinking about all
this stuff that's happened to me, and I'm thinking about all
the mistakes that I have made. And yet I'm going to shift
my thinking and think about something else." Yet this I call to mind. And in changing my thinking,
I'm changing my perspective, I'm changing my outlook, I'm
changing my trajectory of life. You see, what you think about
determines everything else in your life. The Bible says, "As a man
thinketh in his heart, so is he." Your thoughts determine
everything else. Instead of focusing on our
past and the failures and the mistakes, we need to refocus
our minds to think about the potential and the promise that
God has for our lives that lie not only in his Word, but also
in his love that is so great that you and I
can't comprehend it, we have to experience it. And incidentally,
I just want you to know that's what God intended
for you. God never intended for us to
approach him through intellect. He always intended for us to
approach him through experience. God is an experiential God. And so, when he shows you in
Scripture the stories of people, you know that most of the heroes
of faith were adulterers and murderers, and they were
some messed up people. They didn't have
their lives together. But God tells us their stories
not so that we would study their stories, but so that we
would have hope and faith for our own lives and find our
story in their story because God's not finished with you yet. If God can do it for them,
God can do it for you. But instead of thinking
about the problems of the past, we have to refocus our mind and
watch how God had touched other people, and experience the love
of Christ for ourselves so we can refocus on the promises
that are still yours in Christ. And that will help us,
number two, receive God's love. Jot it down, every campus if
you're taking notes today, refocus your mind, but then also
receive God's love. That's what I love is,
Jeremiah says, "Because of God's great love,
we are not consumed because his compassions
never fail." I love this, they are new
every morning. So, it doesn't matter how bad
you messed up today, guess what? Tomorrow is a new day.
You get to start over tomorrow. And if you mess up tomorrow,
you get to start over the day after that. And if you mess up
the day after that, you get to start over
the day after that because his compassions
never fail. They are new every morning,
great is your faithfulness. Did you know that your God is
more faithful to forgive than you are to fail? I fail a lot, but I'm thankful
that I serve a God who forgives me
more than I fail. And so, every single day, you
and I get a fresh chance to go to God, a fresh opportunity
to start over because of his incredible love. But most of us can't receive
God's love 'cause we won't love ourselves. We can't believe that God
would love a person like us. And I just want you to know
that everybody fails in life and failure is not final. Failure's not your future. You are not defined by the
things that you have done. You're not defined by
the mistakes of your past. You are defined by the
sacrifice of your Savior. Just because you have failed
doesn't mean you are a failure. And too many times, we take
on the persona of the things that we have done and we
create an identity out of it, and that is a lie
from the pit of hell. That is not who you are. Just because you have made
a mistake doesn't mean you are a mistake. Just because you have had
failures doesn't mean you are a failure. And your past does not define
your future. It does not determine
who you are. The Bible says in Psalm 103,
"He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us
according to our iniquities. As far as the east
is from the west, that's how far he has removed
our transgressions from us." But most of us can't receive
God's love because we have this messed up, distorted
view of who God is. 'Cause you see, religion works
overtime to tell you that God's up in heaven
waiting to judge you, and to condemn you,
and to get even with you, and to strike you with lightning
for all the things that you have done wrong. And yet, my Bible says in Micah
chapter 7 and verse 18 that, "There is no God like you,
the God we serve, who pardons sin and forgives
the transgression of the remnant
of his inheritance. You do not stay angry forever,"
but check this out, "he delights to show mercy." God delights to show mercy. God loves letting us off
the hook for the things that we have done wrong. He loves the fact that Jesus
paid the price for your sin and for mine. So, he's not looking
to get even with you, he's looking to get right
with you because he wants to shower you with his love,
he wants to give you his grace, he wants you to experience
his presence and his mercy and his forgiveness. You know, the devil knows
your name, but he calls you by your sin. And God knows your sin, but
he calls you by your name. And he loves you more than
you could possibly imagine. He says, "I'm going to write
the laws on their hearts and I'm going to put them
in their minds." Verse 17, "And their sins
and lawless acts I will remember no more." How good is that? That God, the one who created
the universe, that sees time from beginning to end,
he doesn't forget. He's not looking down
from heaven going, "Remind me how you got there." Like God knows, right? He knows. But the Bible says he remembers
them no more. What that means is he does not
choose to associate us in the manner of our mistakes. He associates with you
through the blood of Christ. So, when he sees you,
you are in Christ justified, just as if you had never sinned. God's coming to you and saying, "Look, you got to refocus
your mind. Don't sit around all the time
and think about the things
that you've done. Don't think about the things
that have been done to you. Don't think about the people
that did you wrong. Think about God's promise and
the life that you're going to live on the other side
of this. Think about the things that
you're going to accomplish with your life 'cause it's never
too late to become who you might've been." Refocus your mind on
the potential that God has for your life. Receive God's love
because he does love you. If you're the only person
on earth, Jesus still would've died
in your place, he loves you. And if you do that,
number three, then you can release your past. Jot it down if you're
taking notes. Isaiah 43 says,
"Forget the former things." Stop dwelling on the past. If Jesus forgets about it,
if Jesus has let it go, if the Creator of
the universe says, "I'm washing it away, I'm
separating it from your life. I will associate with you in the
manner of your sin no longer," don't you think it's time
that we put it to rest? Don't you think it's time
that we let it go? You got to let it go.
It's time to move on. Some of us have been trapped
by our past for way too long. We let it consume us. Every time we want to do
something for God, we hear the inner voice
that says, "No, think about the things
that you've done. Think about the people
that you hurt. Think about the life
that you live. Think about the addictions
you struggle with. Think about the thoughts
that you think. Man, you'll never be
good enough." My prayer is that God would do
a miracle changing you from the inside out, and that
that toxic voice would change to the voice of the Holy Spirit
that says, "You are enough. You are free. You are forgiven. You are going to be successful. You're more than an overcomer. You are blessed. You are above only
and not beneath. You are the head
and not the tail. You will be successful
in everything that you put your hand to." That's what God's Word says
about your life. You are forgiven.
You are set free. And that is something that every
one of us can put our hope in, an anchor for the soul that
God sees a better life for you. Dave: It's time to let go
of your past. It doesn't matter
where you've been, it doesn't matter
what you've done, God loves you and he wants to
restore hope in your life today. I want to take a minute to share
Kelli's story with you because she has a past
filled with mistakes. In fact, those mistakes
ultimately led her to prison. But in that place,
she found hope in Jesus. Kelli: Before I accepted Jesus
in my life, my life was chaotic. It was out of control,
it was empty. I was just going through
the motions of every day just trying to live, but I know
like ever since I was little, like I know that I always
had a void in me, like a hole that nothing ever,
like, filled. You know, that I tried to fill
with relationships or drugs or alcohol, and nothing ever filled
that hole until I found Jesus. I grew up in foster care,
like from 2 to 17, but my biological family
was Catholic. So, I grew up on like
that part thinking that God was like a punisher. You know, I know now today that
that's not--that's not true. That's not the God
that I know today. The night that I gave
my life to Christ, I was actually laying all alone
on a floor really cold and just in the most
desperate place in my life, like the most desperate night
of my life, where I literally felt like I
couldn't take another breath. And I remember laying there,
just crying all alone on that floor, and I heard him say to
me that he makes all things new. Like my self-worth,
my self-esteem was so low, I felt like such a terrible
person that I thought that, you know, nope,
I didn't feel lovable, I didn't feel like
anyone could love me, let alone God, you know,
'cause he's this great being, he's the Creator
of the universe. And he just--he spoke to my
heart that night and he said, "I make all things new." You know, and he does, and it's
been a process ever since then. I think my first service
at ITOWN, a friend of mine had come back
to the dorm and she was like, "You know, ITOWN church came
tonight and it was really fun." And like two weeks later, she
had asked me if I wanted to come to the service. So, I came with her, and I was
a little nervous at first because the only experience
I'd had with church people, you know, were judge--you know,
I felt like were judgmental. But when I came through,
like the women that came into that service
were so welcoming. Like as soon as we came in,
they're just smiling, you know, and they shake your
hand and they ask your name. And they're just--they were
really, really welcoming. I get a lot out of the services
with ITOWN, that's why I come back,
like I feel lighter and I just feel better when I leave
than when I came in. Like the main thing that I found
in my relationship with Jesus is hope, hope that my life
doesn't have to be the way that it was before I came here. You know, hope that I can--
I can live and have happiness and have a purpose in life. I guess like before,
I just never felt like I had any sort of purpose,
and I do now. Hi, my name is Kelli, and
through the love of Jesus, I was made new, and I'm
a member of ITOWN Church. Dave: Just like Kelli,
your life does not have to be the way it was before. God wants to make you brand new. I want to take just a minute
to pray that God would help you find freedom from the past
and give you hope for tomorrow. Lord Jesus, I thank you for
every single person watching. We thank you that we don't
have to be defined by our past, and that you do have
a future and a hope for every single one of us. So God, as we surrender all
the pain and all the mistakes of our past, we thank you that
you make us brand new. Thank you that you have a better
tomorrow planned for every single one of us. In Jesus's name we pray, amen. Now, for some of you, you won't
be able to find God's plan, God's future for your life until
you give him complete control. In fact, I often like to say
he's either Lord of all or he's not Lord at all. But a beautiful thing happens
when you surrender to Jesus, the Bible says he makes
everything in your life brand new. And maybe that's what you need
today, a fresh start. You can find that just by
surrendering your life to him, and it'd be my honor to take
just a moment to help you do that. If you would,
just bow your head, close your eyes maybe right
there where you're watching, and pray this very simple
prayer after me. Just say, "Lord Jesus,
I surrender my life to you. Forgive me for all of my sin. Today, I make you my Lord. I give you my life. Fill me with your presence
and with your power, and give me a brand new future. In Jesus's name I pray, amen." If you just made that decision,
I think it's the best thing that you can do with your life,
and I want you to know I'm so proud of you. Our church is actually built
for people just like you. So, we'd love to come alongside
you and support you any way we can in this brand
new journey of faith. Take just a moment to grab
your cell phone, text the word "hope" to 63566. We'd love to send you
a very simple text that has some next steps
that you can take as you grow in your relationship with God. Of course, as always,
you can find the rest of this series called "Hope in
the Darkness" on our website. And I'd love to invite you
to join us for one of our Sunday services. Until then, we love you
and we're praying for you, God bless. ♪♪♪ ...
