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Hope as a Victory Weapon in the New Covenant
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Happy Resurrection Sunday. Jesus paid it all. I had tears in my eyes while the musicians were ministering—a poignant reminder of what Jesus did on the cross of Calvary. And if perhaps you're here and you don't know him personally as your Lord and Savior, Redeemer, healer, way maker and deliverer, I pray today you will meet him. And if you met him but you left him, I pray today you will return to him.
Hopelessness is a growing and deadly problem. Suicide, which is the last stop on the journey through hopelessness, is one of the top 10 killers in the United States. Hopelessness has visited an epidemic upon the human race of depressive disease, addictions of drugs and alcohol and chemical addictions, moral addictions, and violence and crime.
When a man or a woman comes to a point in life where they conclusively believe there's nowhere else to go and things will never get better, this is hopelessness. Among believers—tongue talking, Bible quoting believers—hopelessness leads to negative pessimistic thinking, irritability. People become low energy, spiritually disengaged, and find it difficult to embrace anything that is God.
Hopelessness afflicts the rich and the poor. It is not a disease of the poor. It afflicts the educated and the uneducated and cuts through all social and socioeconomic strata—Black, white, young, old. All must battle with this blight called hopelessness. It is a secret disease, like the disease of leprosy that was underneath the clothing of a successful general called Naaman.
I believe that God has sent me these few minutes to deal with the spirit of hopelessness—to get somebody to disembark from the bus where the final bus stop is suicide, self-termination. And sometimes self-termination is not just physical. Sometimes it's ministerial. Sometimes it's material. Sometimes it's marital. Sometimes it's economic. There are different kinds of spiritual self-termination.
Hope is patent, pertinent, and powerful. The force of hope changes a life before anything changes. Before there is any material or physical change, when hope visits the heart, it changes the person. It changes your thinking. It changes your speaking. It changes your actions. It alters your decisions.
When hope visits a person, it is a transforming force, a spiritual entity that the devil cannot tackle. Whatever the expression, whatever the dimension of hopelessness, I quash it this morning in the mighty name of the Lord Jesus Christ. I overturn that quiet destructive force of hopelessness that the devil is using to manipulate your capacity to deal with the issues of life.
For there is hope for a tree that is cut down that it will sprout again and that its tender shoots will not cease. (Job 14:7)
I speak to the corridors of your mind and the essence of your thoughts: anything that has been cut down in your life but is in the will of God for you—I visit hope upon the trees of life that have been cut down.
Though its root may grow old in the earth, and its stump may be dead in the ground, yet at the scent of water, it will bud and bring forth branches like a plant. (Job 14:8-9)
I speak to your body. I speak to your ministry. I speak to your family. I speak to your marriage. I speak to your hopes. I speak to your dreams. Whatever looks like time has passed and it will not come to pass, whatever the devil has said to you is irrevocable or irreversible—by the power of hope, you will live again.
I declare that what the enemy meant for evil, God is turning it around for your good. At the scent of water—the washing of the water of God, the word of God, the truth of God, the revelation of God, the rhema of God, the current present tense word of God—you will live again.
In Genesis, Sarah said, "Who would have believed that God will cause me to laugh?" This was a lady dealing with an impossibility.
In Romans 4:17-18: Abraham is made a father of many nations in the presence of God, who gives life to the dead and calls the things that are not as if they did exist. He, against hope, in a state of complete hopelessness, in hope believed. This is a play of words. He believed in hope not because it had manifested, but because of the God that promised it, who cannot lie.
There is a God that sits in heaven who is omnipotent, all powerful. If he reaches out his hand, nobody can return it unto him. Abraham believed in hope against hope that God will make him a father of many nations according to what he said, so shall your descendants be.
Not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body that was already dead—he was a hundred years old—or the deadness of Sarah's womb, who was ninety years old. (Romans 4:19)
How ridiculous, how stupendous, how lacking in common sense can it be that you are having hope that a ninety-year-old postmenopausal woman will have a child? But God is not a man that he should lie or the son of man that he should repent.
When Abraham looked at his wife at ninety and himself at one hundred, he had nothing medically, nothing physically, nothing historically to prove that what God said will come to pass. But the Bible says he embraced hope. His hope was what God said he will do, regardless. Regardless of what the lawyer said, regardless of what the doctor said, regardless of what history tells us, regardless of the fact that there is no precedence, it has never happened before—you will be the first person that will happen to.
He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God. (Romans 4:20)
Abraham's hopelessness did not paralyze his hope. And God did what he said he would do. Before the end of this month, April, you are coming here with a great testimony. What you have been waiting for ten years, twenty years, thirty years—the devil is telling you what God didn't do in twenty-five years will he do it in three days. And I stand here as an oracle of the new covenant: what you did not expect to happen in the next five years will happen in the next five days.
I invoke the hand of the omnipotent God. On the strength of your faith, as it was for Abraham, it will be for you. Your waiting is not in vain. Your tears are not in vain. All that you have been lingering for, praying about, fighting about—that the devil has been mocking you over—I decree: the door is open. The gate is open. And as the grave was empty on the third day, that which the devil rolled a stone over, we remove it now in the name of Jesus.
Why do you seek the living amongst the dead? He was crucified. This is the third day. He is definitively dead. He has been buried. The stone has been rolled across his grave. And yet you are looking for the living amongst the dead. (Luke 24:5)
But look at what the Bible says: "You will not suffer your holy one to see corruption. You will not leave his soul in hell." Even Jesus, before he died, had hope that his soul will not be left in Hades. His hope subsisted for him to be raised on the third day.
Whatever resurrection lies ahead of you, your hope is your connection to your resurrection. Whatever died, whatever was buried, whatever has been written off—whatever they said, whatever life is saying will never be your testimony, that you will never be congratulated in that dimension—I came to give you your ticket to your manifestation. It is the sustenance of your hope.
God spoke to me overnight and said: Hope is not an English word. When you read the English word hope, it means to cross your fingers and hope for the best with no assurances, no confirmations. But when we read the word hope in the New Covenant, it is a force, an entity, a covenant existence. When you read the word hope in the Bible, it is a word that emanates, provokes, incites, and invokes the hand of God.
Now abide faith, hope and love, these three; and the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)
Faith we know from Hebrews 11:6: "Without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that comes to him must believe that he is and a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
Love we understand from Matthew 22:37-39: "Jesus said you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. This is the first and the great commandment. Then he said, and the second is like this: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. And he said, on this, the law and the prophet subsist."
Hope is in the same company as these great forces—faith and love. Yet we rarely talk about hope. But hope is as important, as imperative, as essential to our Christian results as faith and love. Without love, faith cannot work. Without hope, love or faith cannot work.
About Abraham: "Against hope, he believed in hope." Faith and hope in the life and experience of Abraham traveled together.
Hope is a vital new covenant victory weapon. When Jesus went to the cross, he told his disciples, "On the third day I will be back." This is the message of Easter: you must not lose your hope.
Hope is an internal virtue for external victory. Until you internalize your hope, you cannot externalize your victory.
David said, "Many have increased that trouble me. Many are those that rise against me. Many are they. They say of my soul, 'There is no help for him in God. There is no hope for you.'" But David said, "But thou, O Lord, you are a shield for me, my glory and the one who lifts my head. You, God, are my hope."
No wonder David was a malignant, unstoppable victor. He won many battles because he retained hope. Hope is a powerful, perceptible character trait.
For a light affliction works for a moment, but is working for you and me far more exceeding an eternal weight of glory. (2 Corinthians 4:17)
If you want to carry glory, you must suffer affliction. There is no dimension of glory that will not carry pain. You cannot become a general without fighting battles.
While we do not look at the things that are seen, we look at the things which are not seen. For the things that you see are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal.
Hope cannot be seen, but it can be felt. Turn to your neighbor and say, "Do not pity me. Do not feel sorry for me. I carry hope. I'm pregnant with hope. I have swallowed hope. I embrace hope."
Hope believes that God is able. When a woman or a man is hopeless, they have come to the conclusion: "God cannot help me." Hope says, "God is able. No matter how bad, no matter how bad—God is able."
Hope is an internal fountain of strength, of joy, and of peace. Show me a believer that has lost their peace, and I will show you a believer that has lost their hope. Show me a believer that comes to church and cannot praise God, and I will show you a believer that has lost their hope. Show me a believer that can no longer be strong enough to serve God, and I'll show you someone that has lost hope. Hope is a fountain of strength and joy.
Those that wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They mount up with wings as eagles. They run and they are not weary. They walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)
That word "wait" means "those that hope on God." Abraham was waiting twenty-five years. Those that hope on God, lean on God, completely abandon themselves to God even in indescribable agony and affliction—they renew their strength.
A lot of believers become strong when there's a manifestation. They dance when there is a breakthrough. They serve when God has blessed them. But hope makes you serve before there's a manifestation. Hope makes you rejoice in the middle of affliction.
In the book of Daniel, these men went into a fiery furnace singing. They did not sing when they came out. They sang as they were going in. So when they tell you it is bad and you start worshiping, when they tell you this thing is ugly and you start serving, you double your commitment by the force of hope.
Now may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing. (Romans 15:13)
Next week Sunday you are coming to church singing and dancing—not because you bought a new car, but because you have new hope, because you believe that God is able. Every song you sing is an announcement to eternity and earth that God is able.
Hope prevents mental, emotional, and spiritual weariness and weakness. I diagnose that a lot of Christians are weary, lack energy to serve God and serve men because of hopelessness. The Bible says in the psalm: "I was glad when they said, let us go to the house of the Lord." This was because of the force of hope.
Everybody has challenges. The one that's not married has a challenge: "I want to marry." The one that is married has a challenge: "What have I done?" The one that wants children is saying, "I have a challenge. I want children." The one that has them is thinking, "Ah, I have a challenge. What am I doing with so many?"
There's no human being that does not go through difficulty. And let me tell you something: if you don't have hope, you sentence yourself to a life of misery. You'll be permanently miserable. Hope allows you to carry glory, to serve God, to maintain peace, and to live victoriously.
On the road to Emmaus, after the resurrection, Jesus met with the disciples. They were walking down the road together and he was talking to them, but they didn't recognize him. They were mourning and complaining: "There was a man. We believed he was the savior. We believed a lot of things. But the man is dead now."
That is what hopelessness does: God is talking to you like this and you can't hear it. God sent me here this morning to eradicate spiritual deafness and insensitivities caused by lost hope.
As they were walking, they stopped somewhere to eat. They decided to break bread. Jesus, who they didn't recognize, took bread, blessed it, and broke it, and gave it to them. When they ate the bread, their eyes were opened, and they knew him. (Luke 24:30-31)
Our communion this morning is for eyes to open. In the old covenant, Moses, Ezra, Nehemiah would call the whole congregation together and read. Then everybody would say, "We have heard what you read. We will do it."
In the new covenant, it is not reading. In the new covenant, the covenant says: "As many as are led by the spirit of God are sons of God." In the new covenant, it is hearing—your capacity to hear God. Even when you are reading the Bible, it's not your reading that matters. It's what you are hearing while you are reading.
He said, "I will put the teacher in you. You have no need for anybody to teach you. As you are reading, you'll be hearing the Holy Spirit talking to you." That hearing is paralyzed by hopelessness. All kinds of rubbish will be coming out of your mind because you are not hearing.
