Journey of Hope Part 2 Chad Everett – Lead Pastor Mount Carmel Illinois Church
We are on a Journey of Hope
Roads Church Mt. Carmel Illinois this series is called Journey of Hope and journey of hope is about us understanding that life is about a journey. I said Chad Everett this before, and I’m understanding this more in my life all the time, to not get too tripped up over moments because Mt. Carmel Illinois Church life is more than moments. There’s times in our life where we’re going through a season or a period of time where it can just be awful. I mean, it can be like we’re thinking this is the worst possible.
It can’t get worse than this, and when is it going to end? We don’t know. Those are terrible moments in our life. No matter of how good things are or how bad things are, there are seasons of our life that we’re going to experience and life is more than just that moment. It’s a journey.
A journey is about going from one place to another place. We’re talking about a journey of hope, realizing to have hope in our life, it means we’re going to go through times of our life where we don’t feel like we have much hope. Has anybody ever been there? Hey, anybody else been there but me?
Yes, yes. So where are the times? We’re not going to feel hopeful, but we know that God is there, right? He’s with us either way, no matter what we feel. It’s not about what we feel. It’s about what we believe and we believe God is good and he’s faithful.
I want to jump into this. If you’ve got your sermon notes in your worship guide, you can open those up and pull those out, or you can get online here on your YouVersion Bible app. I have the sermon notes available on there.
Let’s open up our Bibles this morning to Hebrews chapter 6. Woo! We are just happy about Jesus. Happy about the Bible. Hebrews chapter 6, starting journey of hope, journey of hope. I’m going to start reading here in verse 9, are you ready?
Yeah, I’ve got a couple that’s working with me. Maybe you’re new. See, here’s how things go. Now we just want you to want to encourage you. Feel free to receive from God today. Jesus is the one that we’re after. He’s the one that we need. I just want to release him to do everything he wants to do. I’ve been gone all week this week and I just flew back into town Friday night late.
I’m just excited about what God has in store for you, and what he’s doing in your life. Even if you think it is a terrible time in my life, even the midst of terrible times, God is there.
Hope is not just a Feeling or an Absence of Problems
We want to see something about hope that we’re going to talk about today. It’s not just hope. It’s not something that I just feel. It’s not just something that I’m going to have in good times.
This is something we’re going to have in challenging times because Mt. Carmel Illinois Church I believe this about the church, and I found this in my own life and maybe in Western culture. If we’re not careful, we in the church can think that success is when we don’t have problems.
Okay? We can think, or we can be duped into, or we can be bamboozled and hoodwinked into thinking that I’m a better Christian when I don’t have struggles. That’s not the truth. We’re pulling back from things that we should be leaning into. We’ll talk about that.
We’re trying to sidestep and avoid things that God wants us to walk through. God said Chad Everett, if you will walk through this season, if you’ll walk through this situation, this adversity, these challenges, whatever you’re facing, if you will walk through it, on the other side is where you’re going to get what you’re looking for.
The Symbol of Christianity is a Cross, not a Crown
Too many times, I’ll say it this way and I’m just kind of starting off the service this way. I’m not sure why I didn’t do the first service, but just hang with me for a moment.
It’s like in Christianity, we look at difficulties and tragedies and adversity sometimes like it’s things that we should stay away from when sometimes they’re the very thing that God is wanting us to walk into. I’m not talking about that God’s hitting us with evil things. I’m not talking about that.
I’m talking about the cross of Calvary. God is very upfront that serving him is not for the faint at heart.
The very symbol of Christianity is a cross. It’s not a crown. We should realize that if we’re going to live for Jesus, it’s going to cost us something. It only cost him his life. I said Chad Everett, well, I’m very encouraged Chad.
Thank you. So glad to come to this church service this morning and be lifted up. It is going to lift us up if we get the right perspective.
The certain things are coming against him because Mt. Carmel Illinois Church on the other side of the cross is his resurrection life, but too many times Christians want to come to the cross and stop there.
We have got to walk through the cross, die to flesh, die to our old life, and die to ourselves. If we will walk through the cross, we can experience resurrection life. But there is pain in this part of the process and we like to avoid pain if at all possible. I like that we look around the cross and we say, man, I want to live like that.
Thanks so much for watching with us. We love our online Mt. Carmel Illinois Church family and we invite you to connect with us. We have a few different ways you can do that. Our website is theroads.church. We are on social media as well. We’d love to pray for any needs you might have. So send us a message and let us know how we can partner with you in bringing the light and love of Jesus to your world.
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