Hope: Desiring a Better World
Our Easter Series will be called Hope: Desiring a Better World. All of us have deep longings and intense desires for a more perfect world. The people that lined the streets on Palm Sunday were looking for something more, something better, something different. They were hoping for a better world. We are really no different. We live in a world of disappointments, discouragements, disease, death and more. All of us have unfulfilled expectations. We know too, hope can be tender and fragile, so we seek a hope that is grounded and resilient. Then on Easter Sunday, we discover others finding “hope” among a pantheon of gods, all of them promising something bigger, something better, something more. Paul breaks in with a description of the One True God who promises the hope of a Better World. The proof of this radical, well-grounded hope is the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The resurrection promises the hope of eternal life in a perfect world of love.
God, the Creator, stands overall and is unlimited. He has no needs, rather he gives life to all. He is deeply personal and cares for people. He wants to be known. He created all the nations so that “they would seek Him and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him.” Often, because we are finite, we try to imagine God is somehow like us. We limit Him or Now He calls us to see Him as He truly is! He has appointed His Son to bring accountability to all. The resurrection is evidence of God’s plan and ways. [Note: This will be gospel oriented, focused on God and what He has done. It will be an encouragement not to look at people or the church and the disappointments and failures, but look to God.]