Sunday, September 4th, 2011

Hope and Holiness

A man was walking through the park one afternoon when he noticed a little league game in progress. As he walked past the dugout, he saw a boy sitting on the bench. So he asked the boy what the score was. “18 to nothing. We’re behind.”

“Boy,” said the man, “I bet you’re discouraged.”

The boy just raised his eyebrows, “Why should I be discouraged? We haven’t even gotten up to bat yet!”

At least he still had hope.

We’ve been looking at Peter’s letter to Christians who are battered and scattered and losing hope.

How about you? How is your hope?

If I passed out a piece of paper with a scale across the top from 1 to 10 with 1 being “I’m hopeless” and 10 being “I’m filled with hope.” What number would you circle? Are you filled with hope? Or are you losing hope?

Now what do Christians do when they lose hope? Often we’re tempted to revert back: to give up and decide to go back to their old way of life-our old friends, our old habits, our old addictions.

This morning we’re going to see a connection between hope and holiness. Hope and holiness.