Hope Is Alive!
Download MP3Welcome to a place of peace, hope, and divine encouragement. This is Joy in Every Step with your host, beloved preacher, retired teacher, and faithful faithful servant of the Lord, Sarita Bernadette. Each week, Sarita shares heartfelt messages rooted in the word of God, filled with wisdom, joy, and the gentle reminder that God cares deeply for you. Whether you're walking through the valleys or dancing on the mountaintops, Sarita's voice will guide you back to his promises step by step. So open your heart, settle your spirit, and take the next step in faith with Joy in Every Step.
Sarita Bernadette:Hi, I'm Sarita Bernadette, and welcome back to another episode of Joy in Every Step. I'm glad you're here. In the last couple of episodes, we talked about the grace of God. It's the grace that saves us and it's the grace that sustains us and enables us. Yes, grace.
Sarita Bernadette:The unmerited favor of God is a source of hope for us as believers. I'm aware that many of us are finding it difficult to remain hopeful right about now. That is to say, maintaining our hope in God is not coming with ease. If we're being honest, we're clinging more closely to His word and His words now more than ever before. There's a verse in Psalm 42 it's Psalm forty two and five and it says, Why are you cast down, O my soul?
Sarita Bernadette:And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God for I shall again praise Him, my help. Yes, he is our help. Note here that King David does four things. He asks a question first and so I would ask you beloved think about what you're thinking about.
Sarita Bernadette:Then he commands his soul to hope. He commands it. Next he looks forward to praising God again. He knows he's going to get up out of that place he's in. Then finally he expresses confidence in God as his help.
Sarita Bernadette:King David sums up what self talk sounds like here. He encourages himself: Beloved, we can take a lesson from the psalmist right here. We must hang on to hope in God. Let's dig a little deeper. There are three types of hope documented in the Word of God.
Sarita Bernadette:First is no hope. That's when one does not know the Lord and is separated from him. And there are indeed people who are without hope and God in this world. Then there's false hope. This hope is based on lies or misplaced trust.
Sarita Bernadette:Often people who have this type of hope are following false prophets and or basing their beliefs on unreliable sources. Lastly, there is true hope. This is the hope rooted and grounded in the Word of God and His promises. So let's zero in on true hope. True hope.
Sarita Bernadette:That's the biblical hope which we can further define as a confident expectation of receiving future promises from God. It's a hope based on His faithfulness and His character rather than a mere wish or optimistic desire. Hope God doesn't just wish for something good to happen. Hope in God expects that something good will happen. You see, beloved, God has a track record.
Sarita Bernadette:If you look back, you can see where He's come through and made ways where we didn't see away. Biblical hope can be distinguished from the hope we hear about in the world. You see optimism is fine, but as believers we have to move beyond just positive thinking. Optimism or positive thinking can be fleeting. It can waver based on what's going on around us.
Sarita Bernadette:It can be based on feelings. And we know feelings are fickle. Hope in God however is stable and constant. Optimism is passive. Hope in God is active.
Sarita Bernadette:Hope in God requires activated faith while optimism permits one to move based on how circumstances look. Biblical hope is built on a solid foundation. First Corinthians three and eleven For no one can lay any foundation other than the one that has been laid. That foundation is Jesus Christ. There's an old hymn I've been humming lately.
Sarita Bernadette:It was written back in 1834 by an English gentleman named Edward Mote. He got the idea for the chorus on his way to work one day and by the end of the day he had written several more verses. The song was inspired by Mote's experience as a Christian. Some of you know the song I'm speaking of: My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness. I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name.
Sarita Bernadette:On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand all other ground is sinking sand. These are the words of the second verse: When darkness veils his lovely face, I rest on his unchanging grace. In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil. Yes, on Christ the solid rock I stand, All other ground is sinking sand. True hope, biblical hope, is built on God's promises.
Sarita Bernadette:Romans fifteen and thirteen: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. When Paul refers to the God of hope who will make the people abound in hope, we know it's because God keeps his promises. This part is important, beloved. There are thousands and thousands of promises from Genesis to Revelations, and so many of God's promises are designed to give us strength, to give us encouragement, as well as clarity. God's promises give us what we need to get through life's difficulties.
Sarita Bernadette:We can abound in hope as we understand, recall, and trust in the Lord our God. Some of those promises include: promise to always love us, His promise to provide for us, His promise to be our refuge, His promise to be our strength, His promise to be our joy. God promises to sustain us. He promises to guide us. He promises to always, always be with us.
Sarita Bernadette:He promises us his peace. Again, there are thousands of his promises in the Bible and I would invite you to explore them on your own. And I would like to explore them in more detail even in the next episodes. I hope you'll come back for that. But as for now, as for hope, the true hope we have is alive because the God we serve is a living God.
Sarita Bernadette:Speaking of true hope and the living God there's this story in the book of Genesis starting in the thirty seventh chapter and continuing on through chapter 50. It's the story of Joseph, the favorite son of Jacob. The Bible tells us Jacob loved him more than any other children because he had been born when Jacob was in his old age. So Jacob had a special robe made for him. You've probably heard it called the coat of many colors.
Sarita Bernadette:Well, this created a problem between Joseph and his brothers. They hated him. That's what the Bible says. One night Joseph had a dream and he shared the details with his brothers. In the dream his brothers were under his authority so they hated him all the more and they plotted to kill him.
Sarita Bernadette:But one of the brothers spoke against that and so they settled on selling him into slavery instead. However, they told their father Jacob that he had been killed by a wild animal. Joseph wound up in Egypt serving in the household of one of its officers named Potiphar. The Bible tells us the Lord was with Joseph. The Lord was with Joseph.
Sarita Bernadette:So he succeeded in everything he did while he was in that household. Potiphar noticed this and made Joseph his personal attendant and put him in charge of the entire household. Things were running smoothly until Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph. Joseph refused her advances however she accused him of rape and Potiphar had him thrown in jail. Once again, the Bible tells us in Genesis 3nine 20 one-twenty three, But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him steadfast love.
Sarita Bernadette:He gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer. Verse 22 says, The chief jailer committed to Joseph's care all the prisoners who were in the prison and whatever was done there he was the one who did it. The chief jailer paid no heed to anything that was in Joseph's care because the Lord was with him and whatever he did the Lord made it prosper. Yes, beloved, this is the favor of God on Joseph's life. But can you imagine the hope in Joseph's heart, the hope that he experienced as these life events played out.
Sarita Bernadette:Beloved, there are times in our lives when things may appear hopeless, but when you look back, you see that God was working in the background the whole time. When we read accountings like this one, we see how the Lord takes care of his own and that my friends, that my friends shows us where we should place our hope. Back to the story. In chapter 40, we see that Joseph was still in prison and he happened to be there with a couple of Pharaoh's officials. They each had a dream and Joseph interpreted their dreams.
Sarita Bernadette:A couple of years go by and the same two men were out of jail and serving Pharaoh when he had a couple of dreams that no one could interpret. And you already know what happened. One of the men remembered Joseph and he told Pharaoh all about him. Pharaoh summoned Joseph to interpret the dreams and Joseph tells him in chapter 41 verse 16, It is beyond my power to do this, but God can tell you what it means and set you at ease. Joseph acknowledged the fact that the power belonged to God.
Sarita Bernadette:Joseph's hope was in him. It was in the Lord. So I ask, where's your hope today, beloved? So Joseph interpreted the dreams and then said in chapter 41 verse 28, It is as I told Pharaoh, God has shown to Pharaoh what he is about to do. There will come some seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt.
Sarita Bernadette:After them there will arise seven years of famine and all the plenty will be forgotten in the land of Egypt. The famine will consume the land. Joseph lets Pharaoh know that God was sending a warning to him and that he needed to prepare. So Joseph went on to share the strategy God gave surviving the famine which was to store up grain during the seven good years and that way they would have enough to last through the bad ones. Pharaoh loved the idea so much that he put Joseph in charge and they did as the Lord had instructed.
Sarita Bernadette:During the seven years of hunger which had spread to surrounding countries the only way to get food was to go through Joseph. Fast forward, when Joseph's brothers arrived in Egypt to get food, they didn't even know that it was Joseph. They didn't even recognize him when they arrived there. And so he tested them to see if their hearts had changed in those many years. First, he accused them of being spies.
Sarita Bernadette:Then he threw them into prison for three days to see if they would feel any guilt for what they had done to him. Then Joseph hid money in their sacks to see if they'd keep it or return it. And lastly, he planted his silver cup in his brother Benjamin's sack. That revealed the change of heart that Joseph was looking for. Judah, speaking for his brothers, volunteered to remain in Egypt in order to protect his younger brother Benjamin and to prevent breaking his father Jacob's heart even further.
Sarita Bernadette:At that point Joseph had heard enough. He wept and he revealed himself to his brothers and then he sent for his father Jacob. Meanwhile meanwhile this is this is huge beloved God is sovereign. While Jacob is on his way to Egypt, God spoke to him. In chapter 46, verse two, God spoke to Israel in visions of the night and said, 'Jacob, Jacob.' And he said, 'Here I am.' And then he said, 'I am God, the God of your father.
Sarita Bernadette:Do not be afraid to go down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up again, and Joseph's own hand shall close your eyes. God is telling Jacob, now called Israel, that he is with him and that this was all a part of a larger plan. In the end the whole family was reunited. Jacob passed on and Joseph forgave his brothers.
Sarita Bernadette:He told them in Genesis 50 verse 20, Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good in order to preserve a numerous people as he is doing today. I'm going to read that again. Though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good in order to preserve a numerous people as he is doing today. Wow! The hope in this story stems from understanding that God's divine purpose and will is always at work.
Sarita Bernadette:He has our best interests at heart at all times. He loves us. Joseph held on to true hope. He had an expectation that something good was going to happen for him. Friends, there is joy in knowing despite the hardships.
Sarita Bernadette:Hope in God guarantees that our future is secure. Our hope is alive. You've been listening to Joy in Every Step. I'm Sarita Bernadette and I'm grateful you chose to spend some time here with me. You can find Joy in Every Step wherever you listen to your podcasts and give us a follow there.
Sarita Bernadette:Do check out the website at joyineverystep.org.
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