Sermon Tone Analysis

| Title: Easter Brings Hope |

| Date: 4~/14~/2002 |

| 1 Peter 1:3-4: 1 Peter 1: 3-4 |

| Season: Easter |

\\ \\ |   |

| |   | printable version of this Sermon |

|   | sound off on this Sermon |

|   | about Rick Rusaw |

|   | email Rick Rusaw |

|   |   |   |

 

*Sermon*

We have some really good news to share with you this morning.

I don't know if I should though because it's a bit premature.

You see, I received a letter this week that said I might have already won ten million dollars.

Now I don't know for sure yet.

But it says I am on the list.

This envelope says that I am right up near the top.

I didn't even have to do anything really, to do this.

Now I know it is a bit early and I have to send in some junk, but I may have already won ten million dollars.

Wouldn't it be great?

Don't you hate that when they hook you in with that stuff?

They do it all the time.

They promise us some great prize that we are going to get.

We are right there at the top, Mr. Rick Rusaw.

They even sent me a letter asking me how I would like to have the money.

Would I like to have it in yearly installments, or monthly.

I must be close this year.

That annoys me when they do that.

I don't know about you, but that frustrates me when I get that.

I wish they would be honest.

I wish one time this envelope would come and say, "You don't have a chance.

You're a loser.

You didn't even fill out the material right this time.

Where was your head when you were doing this?

I don't even know why you enter these stupid contests.

There is no hope for you."

That is more like reality for us, isn't it?

Disappointment happens.

Somebody promises us something and we hope it is going to happen.

It doesn't happen.

All the way back to our childhood when those stupid little plastic toys in the cereal box were going to be our life-time fulfillment if we could just get it.

So mom would buy that stuff.

We would be up to our elbows looking for that little tiny plastic ring or little decoder thing.

It never did quite live up to its expectations, did it?

It disappointed us, it frustrated us.

Sometimes it is a relationship, sometimes it is a job and sometimes it is a wealth we hope to have and don't get.

Or when we do get it, it is not quite what we thought it was going to be.

Great promises, usually disappointment, rarely meeting our expectations, great hopes.

But they usually don't work out.

Peter writes to us some words of hope and expectation.

Great hope that we would have found in 1 Peter 1:3-4

*Peter says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, in his great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish or spoil or fade kept in heaven for you*."

Peter says that because of Christ's resurrection we have this great inheritance.

Over ten million dollars and it won't perish, spoil or fade.

It is being kept for you.

You are a guaranteed winner that is what Peter says.

Now how did Peter get to this place where he can proclaim with such confidence and such great hope.

It didn't come easily for him.

In fact, this hope came out of much disappointment for Peter.

The disciples had been with Jesus.

He had been talking about establishing a kingdom.

The disciples thought it was going to be earthly.

He had been proclaiming this great news of the Messiah being there.

He had been doing miracles for them.

They thought it was a wonderful time.

Many of disciples, I am sure, were thinking, "We cannot wait to be in those chief spots.

We cannot wait to have Jewish authority ruling again.

We are going to get to be at the right hand of Jesus, helping to rule in his kingdom."

But in just a moment, things changed.

They changed too quickly.

They have been in this great triumphal entry, a huge parade where all the people were proclaiming how great Jesus was.

The disciples were with him.

What a time of joy and celebration that must have been.

Here just a short time later they are taking Jesus off to a mock trial and they are going to crucify him.

All the things the disciples had hoped for, all the promises on the outside of the envelope as far as they were concerned, were empty now.

It wasn't happening.

It wasn't going to work out quite like they thought it was going to.

Things change in just a moment sometimes, don't they?

How quickly things change.

We were at a parade in downtown Longmont.

Our daughter, Chelsea, was just two and a half years old.

One minute she was right there on the curbside next to us.

The next minute she was gone.

We couldn't find her.

Several minutes had passed.

Our two-and-a-half-year-old was nowhere to be found.

You have been there before.

You know the panic.

It is amazing all the things you can think of in just a few minutes that may have happened.

I don't know how she did it, but she was two blocks away, wandering down the sidewalk.

We were glad when we found her.

It worked out OK.

But for just a moment, there was panic.

For just a moment, things were not working out like I had hoped for at all.

Maybe for some of you this past week or month or year, it has been difficult.

In an instant, you got a health report that changed your world.

It changed how you were going to approach life.

Changed how you were going to face the next few weeks, months.

And for some of you, finding out that you didn't have that long.

Maybe it was the phone call that came or the knock at your door to announce that someone in your family was gone now.

Someone who had been there at the table, now was no longer going to be able to be there.

You are experiencing the loss and the grief that comes with the loss of a loved one.