The Thread of Hope

Well, thank you very much. Children's choir was beautiful. I always loved listening to the children's choir. And such a good message. Joyful heart is good medicine, you know? You get that situation where you're dealing with difficult things and it just, oh, it's so hard on your health and so hard on your body and just what a wonderful message. So thank you guys very, very much.

Delivered with such joy. That's what I always appreciate with the children's choir. You know, there's always smiles and joy and I love it. I love it. Well, good afternoon once again, brethren, and happy Sabbath. I think I forgot to wish you a happy Sabbath during the announcements. The title for the message today is The Thread of Hope.

It's titled The Thread of Hope. And some of you, I know, some of you have heard this story before, so I'm going to apologize if you've already heard it. And I'm going to say it again. I'm going to tell it again. So if it's a repeat for you, my apologies. If it's not, well, then it's new information. And, uh, all right, cool. So I finished grad school in 2004. So I graduated with my master's in 2004 from Willamette University, graduating with a master's in teaching.

And I got immediately hired on after that year at a high school not too far outside of Salem in the small town of Staton. Some of you are familiar with Staton, the home of the Eagles. Staton High School, home of the Eagles. I taught a number of classes out there at, uh, Staton High, different science offerings. I had run of a full industrial-sized greenhouse for my botany class.

I mean, like, industrial greenhouse. This thing was amazing until someone burned it down. There was that. It was great while it lasted, to be fair. Um, I taught on the second floor of the school, which meant that there was stairs between me and my administration. So if they wanted to come observe me, they had to go upstairs. Needless to say, I rarely saw them, which meant I had a lot of freedom. I could do kind of the things that I wanted to do, which was wonderful. Um, I was able to kind of do my job without too much interruption. I loved my coworkers. I absolutely loved my coworkers.

They were such a wonderful, wonderful group of folks. And for the most part, I enjoyed the kids. Um, most of them. They were wonderful, wonderful kids. Uh, for the first time in my adult life, I had a real job. You know, Shannon and I were, were making decent money, which enabled us to move forward with our grand plan. We had a grand plan. And our grand plan, we had it all figured out.

It was housed dog kids in that order. That was our plan. That was the whole thing. House dog kids. So we found a house, we bought it. We got a dog, largely regretted it. And by, yes, and by October of 2006, we were expecting. So far, so good. I was gainfully employed. We had a house, we had a dog, we had a kid on the way. All was well with the world. Fast forward to April of 2007. That was three months before my son, Aiden, was born. The district HR director stopped by my classroom one morning, about five minutes before my class started.

I, I had kids in the room already. This was a, I've showed up, I want you to sign something, and I want to get out of here before this becomes an issue. And, uh, she hands me this piece of paper that required my signature. Well, I learned a long time ago not to sign things that I hadn't read.

It's a lesson that is important, and an extremely important lesson, and so I read the paper, and from what I gathered after I took the chance to read it, it looked as though by signing this paper I was acknowledging that I was going to be let go after the 2006-2007 school year. And so, I asked her, does this mean what I think it means? And she said, yes, your interpretation is correct, that you will be let go after the 2006-2007 school year. The man I was hired to replace was in the National Guard. He'd done a tour or two in Afghanistan, and now that things were winding down, his services in Afghanistan were really no longer being required.

He was going to return to the classroom, and that meant my services were no longer required. We had just bought a house. My son was due in three months, and as of that morning, I didn't have a job the following year. Needless to say, that was not the most fun day of my teaching career. Memorable, yes, I can remember exactly where I was standing.

I can see her face. I can see the paper. It is feared in my mind the events of that morning. But it wasn't a lot of fun. And, you know, that event, as difficult as it was, and as many questions as we had when I got home of what are we going to do? What are we going to do? There's a house payment. There's this, there's that. We have a kid coming in three months.

What are we going to do? That event, as difficult as it was, set into motion in my life, a series of dominoes that, in hindsight, when I could finally stop and look back on it, resulted in one of the most clear hand-of-God moments in my life. I don't think it was more than a month later that I got a call out of the blue from my mentor teacher. My mentor teacher, ironically, was Shannon's high school chemistry teacher, which, you know, threw her for a Loop 1 afternoon when she came home from work, and he and I were sitting on my couch playing Xbox.

She kind of rolled in and goes, wait, what? But anyway, he gave me a call. Today, it's six. You know anybody looking for a job? I kind of laughed, and I said, you know, it's funny you should ask me. And he kind of said, well, there's this job. It's a middle school position. And ironically, when I was going through my program, I told myself, you know, I'm not going to ever teach middle school because, dude, hashtag middle schoolers.

I'm not going to do that. But I might as well get it just in case. And it was literally a just-in-case endorsement. And anyway, I got it. I should probably add the endorsement just in case. So I got it with no plans to ever teach middle school. I applied to this middle school position. It was granted an interview. Turns out the school was five minutes from my house.

I walked into the interview, and across the table from me was the woman who taught my middle school methods class. Knew me unbelievably well. Unbelievably well. And it was one of those situations where I don't know about you. Have you ever had an interview that you've sat in where you knew you had the job before the interview was even over? I don't know if you've ever had that kind of an interview before where you're like, yeah, this job is mine. Like, there is no question in my mind I'm walking out of this place with a job offer. They did. They called. They made the offer. And what I do, I do things a little bit differently than some. I don't talk about the feast and Sabbath in the interview itself. I wait until the offer's made. And when the offer's made, then I schedule an appointment with the person who made the offer, tell them, yes, I want to accept, but you need to know that that that that that that that is the offer still available. And so I did. I walked in. I told the principal, look, I walked in to give him the feast talk, you know, hey, by the way, you're going to hire a sub for like 10 days every year. Is that going to be okay? But I let him know, look, before I accept, I need to let you know about my religious beliefs every fall, dot dot dot. I do this. And I started into my big old spiel and he actually stopped me in the middle of my spiel. And he said, I know. I said, what do you mean you know? He goes, I know. He goes, I did my homework. You guys, I know you leave for the Feast of Tabernacles. I understand that. And I'm offering this to you because you come with the faith that you bring to the table. You are who you are because of what you believe. And I'm hiring you. So needless to say, I was flabbergasted. That's not typically the response that I get when I tell people about the Feast of Tabernacles. And I accepted the job. Started working at Waldo Middle School, a little over 10 years ago. And, you know, I was happy to learn in addition to getting a job. That was cool.

I also got close to a $6,000 a year raise, just switching districts. I also reduced my drive time from 30 minutes to five. And I began to work for a really awesome administrative team, which is a trend that has continued with my current principle. After teaching at Waldo for five years, the federal government forgave almost $18,000 of my student loans because I had taught five years of science in Title I school. The training that I've received since starting that job has been invaluable to my ministry. It's been invaluable to my service in the Church's camp programs. And honestly, it's taken care of us financially, which has enabled us to start our family and for Shannon to be able to stay home and raise our kids. I can look back on that now, and I can see the dominoes fall into place. But I'll tell you what, at the time all of it was happening, those were some dark days.

Those were some dark days. The time between signing that paper and getting that phone call, those days of uncertainty between, is there even a job out there for me? Why am I going through this?

It was extremely difficult.

I didn't know what we were going to do. You know, as a provider for the family, your identity is wrapped up in that. Your identity is wrapped up in that. Who you are is your provider. That's what you feel. And I had a bit of an identity crisis. I wondered quite seriously, were we going to lose the house? How much debt would we amass in order to make all this work? How much more will the bank give me? Kind of question. But you know, little did I know at the time I was trying to process all of this, God was saying to me, have you got a storehouse big enough to hold it all? Have you got a storehouse big enough? Brethren, we're in the midst of a storm when we are in the thick of the trials of life. It can be so unbelievably difficult to find the blessing in it, to find hope, to find that little thread that we can grab onto. Honestly, again, only now with the benefit of hindsight can I even look back on those days and clearly see God's hand in it at all.

Joseph had a very similar situation in his own life. Let's go over to Genesis 37, and I fully recognize I was not thrown in a pit. I got you. You're absolutely right. But it was a similar situation where in hindsight he can look back and he can see the dominoes being put into place.

Let's go ahead and start in Genesis 37, and we're going to spend just a little bit of time here in the next four or five chapters. For those of you doing the chronological read-through, you know, we just started the book of Job, just the last two days. We just started into the book of Job.

But we spent a significant amount of time in the last couple of weeks looking at Joseph's story and spending time looking at what exactly happened with Joseph.

Genesis 37, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 3.

In verse 3, we see the stage more or less set for what ends up happening to Joseph. Genesis 37 verse 3, now Israel loved Joseph more than all of his children because he was the son of his old age. And also he was the firstborn of Rachel, which is another part of that. Also, he made him a tunic of many colors. Now, my children at school, my students at school often ask me, which class is my favorite? Don't ever answer that question. It's a loaded question. Don't tell them. They don't need to know. You're all my favorite. No, that's not true. Don't tell them that either. But the reality is, in this situation, the brothers knew that Joseph was the one that was loved more. They knew. He was a parent based on Jacob's actions. But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more, they saw it. It was noticeable. They hated him, and they could not speak peaceably to him. So there was animosity from the start. I mean, there was already animosity from the beginning of this whole entire thing. Verse 5, Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers, and they hated him even more!

Joseph says, Hey! I had this whole thing happen, this dream! It's incredible! Get this!

And we see what the dream is. He said to them, Please hear a dream which I have dreamed. There we were, binding sheaves in the field. And then, behold, my sheaf arose, and yours also stood upright. And indeed, all your sheaves stood all around, and they bowed down to my sheave.

His brothers, kind of maybe you can hear the scoffing in their voice, said, You sure you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us? And so they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words. Verse 9, He dreamed yet another dream, and he told it to his brothers, and said, Look, I have dreamed another dream, and this time the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me. So he told it to his father and his brothers, and his father rebuked him. Jacob said, Hey, uh-uh, no, don't be sharing this. He rebuked him and said to him, What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you? Verse 11, And his brothers envied him, but notice Jacob! His father kept the matter in mind. Jacob knew how God spoke to him. He had a dream, too, remember? Where there was a stairway, and there were a number of things descending up and down, angels up and down the stairway. So Jacob kind of knew, like, Wait a minute, maybe something's going on here. He kept this in mind. And his brothers instead envied him, hated him, got frustrated with him, plotted against him. And so we see the stage set for Joseph's story. He has this dream given to him by God, showing his parents and his brothers ultimately bowing down to him. As the youngest, you know, ish child in there, Benjamin maybe is a little bit younger than he is.

Of course, Jacob's status, too, his favored son. There's already bad blood. This didn't help.

Further down in chapter 37, so we go down a little further in chapter 37, we see the brothers hatch a plan to kill Joseph. It didn't start with throwing him in a pit. Reuben talked him into that. They were planning on killing him from the outset. And Reuben, of all people, talked him out of it. Reuben said, No, no, we're not going to kill him. How about we do this instead? How about we do this instead? How about we whalay him instead? We spare his life and we sell him to the Midianite traders and, you know, at least make some money ultimately off of the deal.

We see Joseph arrive in Egypt. He's sold to the Midianite traders. He arrives in Egypt. Verse 36 of Genesis 37 records, he was sold as a slave to Potiphar, an Egyptian officer and a captain of the guard. Genesis 38 departs the story all of a sudden, shifts perspective. It goes over to Judah and what Judah was doing during this time frame of Joseph's time in Egypt. And then in chapter 39, we pick up his story again. You turn over to Genesis 39.

Genesis 39, we see that from the very beginning of his time in Egypt, Potiphar saw that God was with Joseph, that he was blessed and he was successful because of the Lord's presence and favor in his life. Potiphar's an Egyptian! He saw it! He recognized it. He saw that there was something about Joseph. Before long, Joseph was over everything in Potiphar's house, and those blessings that had been extended to Joseph from God were now extended to Potiphar into his household as well. God was blessing Potiphar through the presence of Joseph. Let's go to Genesis 39 and verse 5. It says, Can you imagine trusting someone so much that you didn't even bother worrying about anything financially? What's coming in that house? What's going out of the house?

Joseph's got it. I know I'll have bread on the table. It's fine. Everything's good.

It also goes on and says, Joseph had complete trust from Potiphar. He respected him. He respected the decisions that he made, and that respect was bi-directional. We also know the story of how Potiphar's wife tried to seduce Joseph, and we see Joseph's response in verses 8 and 9. It illustrates his respect for Potiphar. He says, Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. No one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you.

You are the only thing that I don't have authority over. And he basically tells her, Look, absolutely not. She falsely accuses Joseph. We know the story. Unfortunately, after he bails out, she's left holding his garment in her hand, which of course doesn't look good. When a half-naked Hebrew slave bails out the front door, down the street, in front of a bunch of witnesses, and the accusation against him was that he tried to take advantage of her.

Look, something like this happens. You're going to jail. I mean, that is a lot of evidence against you from an accusation and a garment and witnesses seeing you both from the house. That's a lot of evidence against you. You're going to jail. No question. And sure enough, that's what we see happens. Potiphar and rage has Joseph imprisoned. But we also see that God continues to be with Joseph throughout this entire process, with the jailer putting an incredible degree of responsibility on his shoulders and trust. We don't have a specific timeline as to how long it was between his arrest and when he encounters the Pharaoh's baker and butler. What we have in Scripture is that there was a passage of time, is what it says.

Personally, though, I tend to think it wasn't a couple of days. This was a long period of time for the jailer to be able to develop that kind of trust with a prisoner. You know, that doesn't start on day one. Hi, I'm Joseph. Oh, here, here's the key. That doesn't happen. It doesn't happen. You know, you've got to get to know the person. You've got to find out, can I trust this person? And in this case, the jailer trusted him implicitly. We see that the butler and the baker show up there's a dream that they dream that Joseph can interpret. And then we see Joseph interpret it through God's blessing to him. And in verse 14 of Genesis 40, he makes a plea. He makes a plea to the two men who are about to be taken before Pharaoh, Genesis 40 and verse 14. Joseph says to them, but remember me when it is well with you. In other words, when you're out of this place and all is well in your life, don't forget about me. Don't leave me in here. I helped you, you helped me. This is essentially what Joseph told them. Please show kindness to me. Make mention of me to Pharaoh and get me out of this house. Get me out of this prison. For indeed, I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews and I have also done nothing here that they should put me into the dungeon. And we see that Baker and the butler go. We see that what Joseph predicted occurs and we see that the butler forgets Joseph. We see that he doesn't remember him. More time passes.

Two full years pass, according to Genesis 41, verse 1, before he is given opportunity to interpret Pharaoh's dream and then rises to status and authority in Egypt. So after he interprets the dreams of the butler and the baker, he spends two more years in an Egyptian prison.

We go a little further down the passage in Genesis 41. We see Zaphnaph Pena, as he's known in Egypt. He's become a trusted advisor to Pharaoh and he's essentially the second most powerful man in Egypt. But let's take a look at Genesis 41 and verse 46. Genesis 41 and verse 46.

Joseph was 30 years old when he stood before Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt. How old was Joseph when he was thrown in the pit? 17. This entire ordeal in Joseph's life took 13 years. From moment into the pit, before now I am standing before Pharaoh, as the second most important person in Egypt. 13 years of time. Do you suppose during that 13 years there were some incredibly dark days?

Some days where he maybe wondered whether God was with him? Why these sorts of things were happening to him? Whether there were times of despair and questioning God, why are you doing this?

Why are you doing this to me? Why am I rotting in an Egyptian prison? Or, you know, maybe he wasn't quite rotting. You know, he did have the jailer as a friend. Maybe he was getting, you know, three square nice meals a day. But personally, I think so. You know, when we read the Bible, we have a tendency to read them as these figures that are not human. We tend to not put human perception into them. They're humans just like us. They doubt, they question, they struggle, they don't understand sometimes. Sometimes they're brash, sometimes they do dumb things just like us. Just like us.

You know, after the resolution of Joseph's story when he finally reveals himself to his brothers, he has the clarity that only hindsight or direct revelation can reveal. Genesis 45. Go ahead and flip over to Genesis 45 as we round out Joseph's story here.

Genesis 45 verse 1, Joseph is now standing before all of his brothers. You know, there's been some shenanigans back and forth. Now they're back. They're standing before his brothers. And it says, Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him. And he cried out, make everyone go away from me or go out from me, telling all of his servants, all of his staff, get out. Everybody out. Leave me with these men. So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. Verse 2, he wept aloud and the Egyptians in the house of Pharaoh heard it. This wasn't a sniffle. This was an absolute weeping on the order of almost wailing.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Does my father still live? Is Jacob still alive?

But his brothers, at that point, kind of dumbfounded a little bit and scared, honestly scared, could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. You know, they remember what they did 13 years ago. I remember throwing him in a pit, pretending he was dead. Is he going to take revenge? He's pretty powerful now. You know, he could tell Pharaoh, look, these guys are toast, and they're toast. Joseph said to his brothers, please come near me so they came near. And then he said, I am Joseph, your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now do not, therefore, be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here. Instead, he says, for God sent me before you to preserve life. Joseph, at that point in time, realized why all of that other stuff happened. He says it a little differently in Genesis 50. Go to Genesis 50 and verse 20. He says it's slightly different. This is after Jacob dies in Genesis 50, and the brothers became discouraged and frankly concerned that now with Jacob dead, that he was going to finally exact his revenge. So they were very concerned that he was going to going to take them out. But he essentially tells them the exact same thing he told them here in chapter 45, just in slightly different terms. Genesis 50 and verse 20. Joseph says, But as for you, you meant evil against me.

What you tried to do to me, you intended to harm me. But God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is to this day to save many people alive. He goes on to say, Therefore, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and for your little ones. And he comforted and he spoke kindly to them.

Joseph came to the conclusion finally, with hindsight, and I think probably a greater understanding given to him by God, that all of these things happened for a reason. He finally understood why. God had orchestrated him to be in the place where he had found himself.

He was sent to preserve life. Through Joseph's arrival in Egypt, his subsequent accusation and imprisonment, his time in that prison, and now raised to the position that he was raised to, he not only saved Egypt and its neighboring countries, his actions against God's inspiration and divine providence saved and preserved God's chosen people of Israel. Jacob and his family lived because of what happened to Joseph. You know, in fact, if we want to, we could fast forward this story just a little bit more. Joseph dies, Israel is taken into bondage, several centuries of captivity later, Moses leads God's people into the wilderness after their redemption in what our upcoming spring holy days picture. Brethren, none of this, none of this, would have taken place if Joseph hadn't been thrown in a pit by his brothers.

You know, could God have chosen to do it differently? Sure. Yeah, he could have. Absolutely, he could have. But this was the set of moves that he chose.

This was the chess game that he set up, and all of these moves were set up purposefully to be in place by God, to put Joseph in a place where he could work through him to do something incredible and ultimately through him bring Israel to Egypt to set them up and flourish and eventually redeem them from their bondage. You know, sometimes when we look at our lives from our perspective, the events that are occurring to us are a mess. They're a mess. We don't understand why. We don't understand what's happening or why this happened or this is going on. We just look at it and it just looks like a rat's nest to us. Sometimes it's hard when you're in thick of it to be able to see what God is doing. Sometimes it's hard, too, to see the resolution and possibly see the way out. Many of you are familiar with Cory Ten Boom, or at least heard of Cory Ten Boom. She's a Holocaust survivor and a Christian speaker. Now deceased, she's passed away, but she used to describe this situation in a very effective way.

She would give a presentation, and while she would give her presentation, she would be working on a piece of embroidery. She'd just quietly be sitting in her lap working on this piece of embroidery. I don't know if she was really working on it or if it was the same piece of embroidery. You know how speaking works. Sometimes you've got little gags that you use at times. But she'd be working on this little piece of embroidery in her lap, and she'd just talk away as she worked on it, and then she'd get to her point, and she'd hold it up to the audience and show them the back.

I'm using PowerPoint 1.0 today. I didn't want to make Mr. Jackson set up a projector and a projector slide for two slides. So this is what she would hold up. She would hold up the back of the embroidery and this rat's nest of threads just all over the place. And probably a little over-exaggerated rat nests of threads, too, for those of you that embroider. But her point was this. From this side, it doesn't look like anything. It looks like a mess. You can't follow what's going on. You don't understand what the picture might even be from this side, from this perspective. But from the other perspective, the side that she made the point God sees, the picture's quite different.

And because God sees this side, God puts the threads where the threads need to go and where they need to fit and where they need to be in order to make the picture that he's preparing ultimately in the long run. And again, from our perspective, we go, what? That thread makes no sense. But from God's perspective, it makes perfect sense.

Perfect sense. It's a very effective way of considering these sorts of things.

She made the point that this is similar to how God sees our lives. He sees the big picture. He knows the final result. He knows the eventual end of it all. And it might not make sense to our perspective as to where these threads go. It may not make sense if we put a thread here, we put a thread there, or whatever. But from our vantage point, when we look at it, we go, wait, what?

But from the other side of that embroidery, what God is doing makes perfect sense from the perspective that he has and from what he can see. It was like this in Joseph's life. Joseph, you know, God knew full well what he was doing. Even if at times Joseph may have questioned, why am I sitting in an Egyptian prison? Why did my brothers turn against me and throw me in a pit? God knew exactly what he was doing. You know, a little over a thousand years later, God's people found themselves in captivity once again, this time in Babylon. Another mess to them didn't necessarily make sense. This time, however, as a result of their actions and their choices. Let's go ahead and turn over to Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah 29.

Jeremiah 29, and we'll go ahead and pick it up in verses 10 and 11. Kind of breaking into the account here. This particular section of Jeremiah 29 is sent to the early wave of captives that had gone to Babylon. You know, this section was a letter sent to them that was ultimately recorded and preserved for us. Really kind of just letting them know what God was doing in all of this.

Jeremiah 29, verses 10 and 11, is one of the most hopeful scriptures that is found in the Bible. And it was written from a standpoint of those who were in the early captivity of Babylon. So, Jeremiah 10, I'm sorry, 29, verses 10 and 11. Thus says the Lord, after 70 years are completed to Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you and cause you to return to this place. For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, said the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope. And then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all of your heart.

Take a second and put yourself in the shoes of those taken captive. You're in a strange land.

You're captive. Perhaps you've been praying for deliverance, for God's protection, wondering maybe if he's listening, things haven't gotten better. Then a letter comes from Jerusalem. Oh, great! It's from Jeremiah, that guy who always says stuff that nobody wants to hear.

Kind of like Micah. This always says things nobody wants to hear.

And instead of being super encouraging and saying it's over, it says, settle in. It's going to be a long 70 years. You're not getting out of this for 70 years.

And the whole time you're there, the whole time you are captive, you are hearing rumors of what's going on in your home country. You're hearing about the destruction of the temple. You're hearing about the fall of Jerusalem. You're hearing about all of these things, and there's nothing that you can do about it. It just gets worse. Notice the words in verse 11. God says, I know the thoughts that I have towards you, thoughts of peace, not of evil, of a future and of a hope. Saying, I want for you good things. I want to give you this land, and I want to return you to it. If despite those words, it probably was a difficult pill to swallow. Did some of the Jews die in captivity without attaining that promise? Yep, absolutely. Were some mistreated by their captors? Most certainly. Most certainly. Were they still strangers in a foreign land for 70 years? Yes, they were. Yes, they were. Psalm 137 records the thoughts and the feelings of those captives. Let's go ahead and turn to Psalm 137. Remember, Psalms is a collection of praises and songs of praise. They're not all written by David. Psalm 137, in fact, the Septuagint, whether it's accurate or not—I don't know if this is accurate or not.

Complete speculation, but this Septuagint actually puts in the beginning part of this that this is the psalm of Jeremiah. The Jeremiah actually wrote Psalm 137 is what the Septuagint claims. Again, I have no way of proving that. It's interesting speculation at best. Psalm 137, though, does record the kinds of thoughts and the feelings that the people of God would have had, the Jews at this time would have had, sitting in the country of Babylon.

Psalm 137, verse 1, says, By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, and there we wept.

When we remembered Zion, we hung our harps on the willows in the midst of it. For there those who carried us away captive asked of us the song. Sing us the song of Judah. Sing us the song of your people. And those who plundered us and took us captive requested mirth. Come on, be joyful, make merry. Sing us a song. Sing us one of the songs of Zion. They said, How shall we sing the Lord's song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget it still.

If I do not remember you, let the tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth. If I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy. Remember, O Lord, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, Raise it, raise it to its very foundation. O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, happy is the one who repays you as you have served us. Happy the one who takes and dashes your little ones against the rocks. It was difficult to read the last passage of that. It's hard to consider that attitude and that thought. But this is the thought processes of those that were there and those that were captive at this time. And for the Jews, if that 70 years of captivity progressed, it must have been an incredibly difficult time. It must have been incredibly difficult. The promised land had been taken. It's gone. The temple had been raised. It would be destroyed, it would be looted. The kingdom itself would fall. They were captives in a strange land. And for the people of Judah at this time, these were dark days. These were very difficult times. But there is a pattern and a thread that winds throughout the Bible from its very beginning to its very end. It encompasses us in the modern era of the church as well because we're bookmarked in between the beginning and the end of the book. We see it from the earliest chapters in Genesis to the final chapters in Revelation. We see this thread in the background woven into the tapestry of Scripture. Sometimes it's in front, sometimes it's in back. Sometimes it's in the background. You don't see it as much. And then it comes to the forefront for a time. And then it goes back into the background a little bit, but it's always there. Brethren, we've all experienced trials.

We've all had difficulties. We've all had times. And some of them are, you know, not able to be compared with others' trials and difficulties. I recognize that. But we've all had times where we weren't sure exactly how things were going to turn out. We pray, we have faith, we believe.

And sometimes the diagnosis is still the diagnosis. Sometimes healing doesn't come.

Sometimes marriages disintegrate. And sometimes people die. And it's times like these when things seem the darkest in Scripture, and frankly, in our own life, the darkest, that this thread shines the brightest. It's times when it's most difficult, like this, when that thread shines the brightest.

It's that thread of hope. It's that thread of hope. You know, just after the words Jeremiah recorded in Jeremiah 29 comes Jeremiah 30 and 31. Let's go ahead and turn there.

I should have had you stay in Jeremiah, I apologize.

Ratio. Almost there. I'm there.

Nah, people are still turning. That's okay.

Okay. Pardon me.

Jeremiah 31, beginning in verse 31, we see this thread of hope take center stage for a time. We see it come to the forefront of the embroidery, so to speak. As we see Jeremiah 30 and 31 move from a present fulfillment to a millennial fulfillment of the remnant of Israel and Judah, solidifies, it proclaims God's plans, what he's planning to do, and how he's planning to do it.

Jeremiah 31, verse 31, says, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to leave them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord. I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

This is a thread that resurfaces again and again and again from cover to cover. This continuing thread of hope that despite the darkness, despite the difficulties that God promised this, he promised this, he promised this. The word hope in the New Testament is the Greek word el-pis.

It means to anticipate, to expect, or to have confidence that something good is going to happen.

Something good is going to happen. And honestly, it's kind of a catch-all word in Greek. It is kind of a catch-all word. There are actually something like 15 different Hebrew words that have been translated as hope in different ways. Confidence, faith, trust, assurance. All those things are translated hope from Hebrew. So we see faith and hope, they're closely related, but the New Testament tells us they're different because the big three, right, 1 Corinthians 13, says they're distinct. Faith, hope, and love, right? They're distinct. So we have these places in Scripture where there are these threads of just eager anticipation, but an eager anticipation in what?

In what? So go ahead and turn over to the book of Titus. Titus 1. Titus 1.

And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. Oops. How do we blow right past Titus? It's such a small little book.

But it's got so much good stuff in it.

There we go.

Titus 1. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 1. It says, Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgement of the truth which accords with godliness in hope of eternal life, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie, promised before time began. You know, Paul explicitly states here that the hope is of eternal life, which was promised, and because God cannot lie, will be delivered. Will be delivered. It was promised before the world began. That thread keeps popping up throughout. And he goes on in Titus 2 in verse 13 to kind of build on this idea even more. Titus 2 in verse 13 says, looking for the blessed hope, and it tacks onto that, and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. So it is a blessed hope. It's a hope of eternal life that is connected to the appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Titus 3 verse 7 continues to build this, just in this same small book. Titus 3 verse 7, that having been justified by his grace, we should become heirs according to the hope, once again, of eternal life. The hope of eternal life.

And so the hope that we're to have according to the Apostle Paul's words to Titus is to be derived from the promise that God has given us of eternal life. Of the fact, not speculation, but the fact that Jesus Christ will return. That he will change those who are his to spirit, and he will conquer death once and for all, even offering an opportunity to those who have ever, you know, never really had their opportunity to experience eternal life as well. You know, hope is an incredible, incredible blessing, because when all physical blessings fail, when we're ill, when we're frail, if we're destitute, if we're in really difficult and dark days in our lives, we can hang on to that threat of hope. We can hang on to that eager anticipation, that trust, and that promise of the coming of Jesus Christ. You know, when we encounter trials, we're told in Scripture we're supposed to count it all joy. But I well know, and so do you, it's easier said than done. That's easier said than done. I would love to tell you that I kept a really great attitude about losing my job at state, and I didn't. My wife could attest to you. I did not have a great attitude about that whole thing.

It's really easy to become discouraged when we encounter difficulties. It's our natural human response. And as that trial continues, and as it goes on, we start to rationalize, and we start to question, and we start to wonder what's going on. Why are we experiencing this? When will it be over? And what we try to do is we try to fix it in our own time frame. God doesn't promise us the specific time-sensitive response when we pray specifically for healing or for deliverance, and He most definitely didn't promise us an easy road. Let's go to 1 Peter 4. We've been here before, but it's always a good reminder. 1 Peter 4. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 12. 1 Peter 4 verse 12 says, Beloved, do not think it strange, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. Peter tells us, look, don't be surprised. Expect it. Expect that there will be fiery trials. There will be things that occur. And then in verse 13, but rejoice, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad and with exceeding joy. If you reproach for the name of Christ, one specific type of suffering that we might be able to experience, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. On their part He is blasphemed, but on your part He is glorified. Throughout Scripture, God is continually telling His people, don't worry about the circumstances. Don't focus on the storm itself. You know, as Mr. Janisic mentioned in his sermonette last week, trying to rebuke the storm. Don't focus on the storm itself. Instead, focus on the hope of the promise when that storm has been ridden out. If you suffer for His fake, it says, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory rests on you, and He is glorified for our part. You know, it's interesting, when we take our perspective off of the storm that we're experiencing it, and when we focus it on the hope of eternal life, the cares and the troubles of this world, they don't hold as much sway. Do they still hurt? Yes. Oh, absolutely they do. Absolutely they do.

But we recognize, and we go forward, and we look at the hope of eternal life off in the distance, and we cite ourselves, put the bow on that as we sail through that storm. Peter talks just a little bit about this chapter, too, earlier in 1 Peter 3. 1 Peter 3, pick it up in verse 8, just across the page here, says, Finally, all of you be of one mind, having compassion for one another, love as brothers, be tenderhearted, be courteous, not returning evil for evil, or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing. Inherit a blessing of what? Inherit a blessing of what? Verse 10, For he that would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit. Let him turn away from evil and do good. Let him seek peace and pursue it. For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayers, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. And who is he who will harm you if you become followers of what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you are blessed. Do not be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. You know, if we suffer for righteousness' sake, it's a lot of s's, sorry, blessed are we. Don't be afraid of the terror. Don't be troubled.

If we didn't deserve to suffer and we suffer anyway, with a good attitude, loving life, not speaking evil, seeking peace, seeking God, we're blessed for it. It was on to say in verse 15, "'But thanks by the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you with meekness and with fear.'" You know, I think we've often looked at this passage from a standpoint of being able to essentially explain everything that we do to people that ask, kind of having a well-crafted and reasoned-out response for why we do the things that we do. You know, in fact, several years back, some of you were there, several years back, we had a young adults' weekend with this theme, and we spent time doing apologetic-style defenses for our beliefs. And while there's nothing wrong with that in the least bit, it's important, it absolutely is important to understand what it is we believe and why we believe it. But honestly, that's not the context of this particular passage. What is the hope that lies within us? Is it the food laws? Is it Sabbath? Is it the Holy Days? Is it why we don't keep Christmas? I'm not saying these things aren't important. They absolutely, most certainly are. They are important. And yes, they are aspects of our hope, and it's always good to have a well-thought-out reason for all of those things. But this passage is getting at the concept that if we approach our trials and our difficulties with the right attitude, focused in the right place, people will ask you, why are you willing to suffer through this with a positive attitude? How can you be dealing with all of this stuff that's going on and still have a smile on your face? Why? The answer is simple, and frankly, it's easier said than done. The answer is because the hope that lies in us is bigger than this life and its sufferings. That's the answer. It's not, you know, it's a simple answer, but it is a tough answer. Nor hope is an inheritance to eternal life.

Christ taught it. Paul taught it. Peter taught it. Honestly, at its core, it is the gospel of the kingdom of God. This change of our weak physical bodies to this glorious spiritual body, the reign of Jesus Christ, the kingdom of God, us being able to go from corruptible to incorruptible.

And I think I've told you this story before, almost certain, but shortly after I was ordained, I started getting that national prayer request list regularly, and I got on the list for that.

And I started getting these regular prayer request emails that go out to the ministry from home office, and I did everything I could to keep up with all—I mean, there were a lot of them, and there still are a lot of them. I did everything I could to keep up with the prayers for those individuals, and honestly, I learned some really hard lessons in those first few months.

I remember a stretch in particular where there were five really serious prayer requests on there, life and death sorts of things. And, you know, I'm praying for these people on a regular basis, you know, regular rotation of prayer, and then, you know, I get all the other emails that are the updates, and then within a space of what felt like two days, it was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, this person died, this person died, this person died, this person died, this person died, this person died. And it were all the five that I was praying so regularly for and trying and beseeching God so much on their behalf. And, you know, those emails came in, I kind of felt like I was on the ropes, and it was just one punch after another, you know, a couple of them to the gut now and again, and then one to the old side of the head. And I kind of had this moment where I went, should I offer not to pray for people? Like, somebody comes up and asks to be anointed, and you go, hey FYI, I'm batting about .2 here, so are you sure? But I learned some really, really difficult lessons during that. I realized while I was praying for their healing that the timetable wasn't specified, and frankly, it couldn't be. I couldn't request it in a specific timetable. God could honor the timetable if He wanted, but He could have something else planned.

You know, less than I took away from all of it is that the answer to prayer for our healing, for deliverance, for security, it may not happen in our desired timetable. It's going to happen according to God's timing. You know, I've got to think Joseph most certainly prayed to God regularly through his trial. His situation didn't resolve for 13 years. The Jews spent 70 years in captivity in Babylon. You can't tell me they weren't praying daily for their release.

Israel? 430 years in Egyptian captivity. Now, they prayed likely more early on than they did later, as they still had an understanding of who God was and that He was their God. And as they lost that over time, I'm sure less of that happened as time went on. But you can't tell me that they weren't asking for deliverance, that they weren't asking God to take care of it. 13 years, 70 years, 430 years, it happened in God's timetable. Turn over to Hebrews 11. Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 we see recorded in what we know as the faith chapter.

A number of people of God throughout the years who have set incredible examples of faith.

And sometimes, even when you read their stories, examples not as great of faith being exhibited at times. You know, we see the evolution of the character, so to speak, as time goes on. We see how their perspective changes as God continues to work with them. Let's go to Hebrews 11. We'll pick it up in verse 1. Hebrews 11, verse 1 says, Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it, by that faith, the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the world, in this case it's the Greek word eion, which really more accurately means times or ages, that the ages or worlds times were framed by the word, and in this case it's not logos.

It's rhema. It's not logos. It's rhema. It's the utterance of God. It's the utterance of God in this case. And so, framed by the word of God so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible. The utterance of God, revealed word of God, framed these things.

By faith we understand that the ages, the times, were prepared by the revealed word of God. He is directly involved in world events. He guides them. He's in control.

He's behind the scenes, so to speak, working out his purpose. And so faith then is the assurance, the realization, or confidence that what we hope for, the purpose that he works for, the return of Jesus Christ in the kingdom of God, will occur.

In verse 7 he goes on, By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household by which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness, which is according to faith.

By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance, and he went out not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of a promise, as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. For he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is gone. Verse 11, By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged him faithful, who had promised.

Therefore from one man and him as good as dead were born as many as the stars of the sky and multitude innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. Verse 13, These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and they were pilgrims on this earth.

You know, these are only a couple of God's faithful throughout history who looked to a city with foundations, whose builder and whose maker is God. Individuals who had a hope in a promise that was given to them, lived their life in accordance with it and never obtained it in this life. Will they obtain it? Absolutely they will, because it's coming. It's coming. These are individuals who died in the faith without receiving that promise, but instead were persuaded of them.

They embraced them, and they recognized that they were strangers and they were pilgrims on this earth. Brethren, these people recorded in Hebrews 11, they're individuals just like us, who have been made aware of this promise, who have been called, who have yielded ourselves to it, who were persuaded of and embraced them, recognizing we're strangers and pilgrims on this earth.

Let's turn over just a little bit before this to Hebrews 6 as we kind of wind this to a close. Hebrews 6. And we'll go ahead and pick it up in verse 17, because a few passages earlier in Hebrews, the author of Hebrews, makes the point that this hope, this faith that we have in the promise of eternal life, anchors us when times get tough. It anchors us when times get tough. Hebrews 6 and verse 17. Hebrews 6 and verse 17. Hebrews 6 verse 17 says, Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of the promise, again that promise of eternal life, of life in the kingdom of God, the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope that is set before us, laying hold of that hope of eternal life. Verse 19, this hope that we have is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become high priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek. I don't know how many of you have done boating in your life. My family had a large pontoon boat that we affectionately referred to as our Ark. Growing up, my dad got this crazy hair of an idea at one point, went and bought two giant pontoons, and started constructing this 26 and a half foot behemoth. And he built it over a process of about six years in our driveway, and we were pretty much the running butt of the joke to the entirety of the neighborhood, who also referred to it as Clem's Ark. You know, it was funny. He finished it. It floated, which, you know, is good. And we actually used to spend summers up on it here and there, up at Lake Roosevelt in Washington. Some of you may have been to Lake Roosevelt before, up in Washington. The bottom of Lake Roosevelt is Grand Coulee Dam. So Grand Coulee Dam holds all the water back from what's the upper Columbia and makes Lake Roosevelt. My dad did not have advanced degrees in aerodynamics, so it was not the most efficiently designed boat. It was basically a large square box with aluminum and canvas sides that caught wind like a sailboat.

And it had a, I mean, you can't imagine how heavy this thing was, you know, it was incredibly heavy. And the engine that we had in it was a little four-cylinder Isuzu diesel.

This thing went about as fast as a herd of turtles in a pool of peanut butter. This thing did not go quick. It was very slow as a result of its speed, as well as the wind resistance that we would get with this thing with all the sides down. We weren't going anywhere very fast. Let's just put it that way.

You know, one afternoon on Lake Roosevelt, I remember as a kid, I was probably all about 10, and a really nasty, nasty storm blew in. Really nasty storm. And Roosevelt's a big lake. I mean, it's a very large lake. I mean, it's bigger, I would say far bigger than Detroit. I mean, from a standpoint of size, I mean, at some point you can be in the middle of it and, you know, shore's way, way, way over there. So it's a pretty good-sized lake. And so we were motoring around, trying to get out of the storm, and try as he might, he couldn't goose the engine up hot enough to be able to get us on plane because the boat was taking on wind like a huge sailboat. And so we're putting along and just getting blown all over the place. I mean, blown all over the place. And the rain's coming down and the wind's blowing and we're miserable and my mom's getting seasick because she goes to a movie and gets seasick. And she does, it's true. And everybody's just miserable, and we're putt-putt and trying to get to shore, trying to get back to the dock. And I think, as night fell, my dad realized we're not going to make it back to the marina. I mean, there is no way we're going to make it back to the marina. And so we did the spotlight thing. I stood in the front of the boat and shown the spotlight. We had one of those big million candle-powered spotlights out front, so he didn't hit logs because we're motoring after dark with no lights other than our bow lights and stern lights. Anyway, just ripping. I mean, it was just a nasty, nasty storm. And we pulled over finally. He knew we weren't getting home. We're sleeping out on the lake this night. I mean, there's no way we're making it back to the marina. So we pulled into this somewhat sheltered cove, tossed out anchors, and told us to go to sleep. That's funny. Sleep. You know, Mr. Janis has mentioned this in his sermonette last week, and this was not the kind of storm that Paul and these other guys experienced. Not even close. You know, not even close. But for a 10-year-old, it might as well have been. I was scared to death. Wind was ripping. At night, the lightning started. We had this white canvas thing, and it would brilliantly just illuminate the canvas, and it would just shine like you wouldn't believe. And it was striking what felt like feet away from the boat just over and over and over and over and big old thunderstorms. And I mean, I'm laying on our little convertible table bed thing, just like shivering, scared to death. And I thought, I thought for sure, we're going into the rocks. You could feel as the night went on, the anchor would slip, occasionally, and you'd feel the boat move. And you'd swing around funny, and then it would snap back. And then it would slip again because it pulled. And the anchor starts releasing a couple of different times. You know, I don't know that any of us really slept that night much at all, as we laid there and wondered what morning was going to bring. That storm pounded us with rain, with lightning, with ripping winds. And even though that anchor slipped several times throughout the night, it never fully let go. It held. And in the morning, we got through the storm, and we woke up and, you know, gave thanks to God and continued about motoring back to the marina. Brethren, the hope of Jesus Christ is our Savior. And in the promise of salvation and eternal life in the kingdom of God is an anchor to our souls, as Scripture states. When we have storms that come, and they batter us, and they beat us down, and they rain on our life, and blow by blow threaten to sink us, lightning striking everywhere, it's that anchor and that hope that holds us.

That anchor that keeps us from being dashed against the rocks, or being sunk in rising waves.

You know, this thread of hope that is throughout Scripture from the beginning to the end, weaves its way throughout Scripture. It's an incredible blessing that that hope is there from the very beginning of the book to the very end of the book. From the very first moments in Genesis, when man sinned and we see the first description of Messiah, to the book of Revelation when he comes and death is finally conquered, and the kingdom of God is fully realized, that thread of hope weaves its way through the narrative. Sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background, but it weaves its way through the narrative and it weaves itself through our lives today. Hope is an incredible blessing. When times get tough, when we're challenged on all sides, when we suffer, when our life begins to collapse around us, we can look to that thread of hope. We can find it. We can look in that tapestry and see it and follow it from passage to passage to passage as we see what God's plan entails and what he plans to do with us as his people going forward.

We can trace that thread right through Scripture, right through history, right on down to us.

We can claim it. We can claim that hope. We can trust in it. We can rely on it because, brethren, no matter how dark it gets, that thread of hope will always shine bright the fabric of Scripture and in our lives.