Sermonette: Where is Your Hope?
Maintaining Optimism in our Most Difficult Trials Through the Ultimate Promise
#1888s
Hunter D. Swanson
Given 08-Aug-26; 15 minutes
description: When the blessings we fervently hope for remain out of reach, how do we maintain hope? Through the deeply personal struggle of infertility, this message explores the tension between intellectually trusting God's promises and emotionally enduring painful trials. The recurring grief of infertility—and the possibility of never having a child—has challenged assumptions about faith, blessing, and optimism while illuminating the example of the heroes of faith in Hebrews 11, who died without receiving all they had hoped for yet remained steadfast because they looked toward a greater promise. Hebrews 12 calls believers to endure their trials by fixing their eyes on Christ, whose suffering was endured for the joy set before Him. While Christians may rightly hope for blessings in this present life, those blessings are temporary; our ultimate hope rests in God's eternal promise. Revelation 21:1-4 offers the final assurance: God will dwell with His people, wipe away every tear, and bring an end to death, sorrow, and pain. True optimism, therefore, is not the certainty that we will receive everything we desire in this life, but the confidence that God's greatest promise can never be taken away.
transcript:
Optimism seems to be in pretty short supply these days. Not that mankind hasn't always struggled with it, but in the last 10 to 15 years or so, at least from my perspective, it seems to be lacking a little bit more than usual. Depression rates are sky high, suicide rates are high, and the general view of the world is gliding pretty low to the ground. Many try to find someone or something to blame, and of course we see this all the time in people's politics. For some, the scope is much smaller. They struggle to see past what is happening to themselves as individuals, not the world around them, and any negative experience really takes a toll on them. You know, it's like very far to see people trying to find hope and things to keep them getting out of bed every day. But for me, hope has always been a very interesting topic to tackle. God has given us the gift of the knowledge of his plan and his desire to give us many blessings, but how do we handle when we do not maybe get to see all the blessings that we hope for. Merriam-Webster defines hope as to desire with expectation of obtainment or fulfillment. And this is the hope we read about in the Bible with the likes of the hope of the resurrection and the hope in the return of Jesus Christ and the hope I want to talk about today. God has guaranteed these things, and we eagerly await them because of the pain and evil we feel and observe in our current world. And of course thank God that we have that guarantee. Uh, so if you will, let's go to Revelation chapter 21 to start and see a glimpse of that guarantee in John's vision. Turn to Revelation chapter 21. We will read just the first three verses. Revelation 21:1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband, and I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God, and we will stop there for now. Now I often ponder within myself about where the line is on my intellectual understanding and my emotional understanding with this. As I believe we all have, we read the many instances in the Bible that either allude to or directly discuss the kingdom of God, and I would not be here if I did not have hope in it. But I would also be lying if I said that that has always been at the top of my priorities. I previously talked about the death of my mother and the effect it had on my walk of faith, and to be completely transparent in my naivety, I thought that was going to be as difficult as it was going to get for quite a long time. And I put too much focus on that, and my hopes stopped being mostly on the kingdom and more on getting immediate immediate relief and other blessings that I thought I would get. Aside from some health difficulties, various things that I've dealt with since then have really not taken over and levels of pain or difficulty until something has been going on for about 3 years now. Did you know that about every 1 in 5 couples in the United States experiences infertility? What's crazy is that these numbers do not account for recurrent pregnancy loss such as miscarriages. So in reality, the number of people affected by the difficulty to conceive a healthy baby is far worse. But a pregnancy loss is not necessarily a matter of infertility, what is it? Uh, before I continue though, I do just want to state I have no intention of trying to gatekeep any childbearing difficulties or any severe trials or anything that anyone deals with and the likes. There are so many extreme things that people go through that I've not been through. I'm very aware of how sensitive this topic can be, so please just know I'm not doing that. Accuracy and definition here is simply just for the integrity of what I'm discussing. So back to it, what is infertility? And according to Women's Health.org, who cites the CDC, quote, infertility means not being able to get pregnant after 1 year of trying or 6 months if a woman is 35 or older. Women who can get pregnant but are unable to stay pregnant may also be infertile. About 10% of women, 6.1 million in the United States ages 15 to 44, have difficulty getting pregnant or staying pregnant. It is also important to mention that while the light is often shown only on women, if we go back to the 1 in 5 couples that struggle with infertility, the quiet metric that is not said out loud very often is that roughly 50% of the time, the issue is with the man. A study done in 2019 even stated that male infertility has increased by about 77% globally since 1990, which really shows that men's fertility health deserves as much attention. I think most people can understand that infertility is difficult. Have you thought about how difficult it can really be? And I, I certainly did not have nearly enough respect for what it does to a person before experiencing it myself. There are feelings of incompetency, feelings of unworthiness with God, lack of value among your family, and complete emptiness in your heart, regardless of how valid they are among so many others that are difficult to face. And not to mention those feelings do not just come once to be dealt with for all. They return every single month. It is a cycle of grief that sometimes seems to never end. And if you haven't experienced this before, I completely understand how easy it can be to just say things like, you'll have a baby one day, why be so negative about it? Or just trust God's timing, you'll be fine. And I get that. I was there before too. And while the latter is of course the correct solution, God's timing is absolutely perfect. I'm not denying that at all. Don't forget the disconnect that can happen between our intellectual knowledge of these things and our emotional understanding. Our emotions are often a little slow and have to play catch up, but of course that just makes us human as we continue to learn from our trials and continue to grow. Did you also know? That the stress level for infertility is compared to the stress level of being diagnosed with a terminal illness such as cancer. The amount of anxiety and depression, medically studied, mind you. That surrounds infertility is really not a joke and it's not overplayed either. Now these studies, to my knowledge, focus mainly on women getting diagnosed, not men, but even though I haven't been diagnosed with cancer before, I can at least tell you that the struggle is, is pretty real and intense. And do not get me started on my wife and I having to watch each other struggle and experience these things while simultaneously attempting to support each other the best we can in our own weakened states. We've gotten much better at handling things over the years, but the cycle really never stops hurting. Well, God can make anything happen. There is typically a small window which conception can happen, and then you have to do the hardest thing of all, wait. You wait for weeks, hoping that maybe finally, this is the one, just for the day to come when your wife has to tell you. No baby. It doesn't matter how many times you get anointed, how many times you pray, how hard you pray. The pain in that moment doesn't go away, and if you do not feel the pain immediately, you will likely be hit out of nowhere when you least expect it a little bit down the road. And perhaps maybe the hardest thing of all has been learning to face the reality that we may never be gifted a child. I may never get to add that one arrow to my quiver, and when I tell you that this has rocked my world harder than anything else I've experienced in my life so far. I mean it. Since before Sam and I were married, I knew I wanted to have a family, and I love children, and with how much the Bible talks about how wonderful children are and how much of a gift they are, the possible reality of that has hit me like a freight train, as I'm sure you can understand. That does not, however, mean I've lost all hope and optimism. Unlike many in this world, we have reasons to be far more optimistic than anyone on the face of this planet, even in the face of our toughest trials. That does not mean hope cannot be placed in having a child one day or other wonderful possibilities regardless of what we are facing, but things in this physical life are fleeting, and we cannot afford to place all of our eggs in these baskets alone. Well maybe it's just experience overcoming being a little naive. I will say reading our heroes of faith and how they did not get to see all of their promises, yet maintained their faith and hope in the ultimate promise really has opened my eyes and helped me not feel so alone in our journey and shift my perspective. So if you join me in Hebrews, we will go to chapter 11. Now last week, Richard said something in a sermon that struck a chord with me as I was thinking about this message. He said that sometimes the blessings we strive for are are blessings that we will not receive now, but in the kingdom. We just have to endure. We may not all get to leave much of a legacy on this earth, but if we do things right, we will have a much greater legacy that is one in the family of God. Now we are going to start in verse 8. We'll be jumping around quite a bit, fair warning, but first I do want to read verses 1 and 2 out of the NET version. Just verse 1 and 2. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for, being convinced of what we do not see, for by it the people of old received God's commendation. And before I continue, notice how I did not read, for by their quality of health, they received God's commendation. I did not read for by the amount of wealth they amassed or the amount of people they conquered, they received God's commendation. Nor did I read, for by the number of children they had, they received God's commendation. It was by their faith through their hope, and as we see, their hope was in the power and promises of God, namely the one that they did not get to witness. Reading now, starting in verse 8 out of the New King James Version. 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 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 God. Down to verse 13, these all died in faith. That is Abel, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, were assured of them, embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. Verse 16. But now they desire a better, that is a heavenly country. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. Jump over to verse 23. By faith, Moses, when he was born, was hidden 3 months by his parents because they saw he was a beautiful child and they were not afraid of the king's command. By faith, Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he looked to the reward. Hop down to verse 32. And what more shall I say, for the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephtha, also of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaping, escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead rays to life again. This is quite a testimony, but now we arrive at the real kicker. The section that we cannot ignore is we must embrace the possibility of not seeing all that we hope for yet while enduring our trials. Not in negativity and pessimism, pessimism, but in true understanding that God's reward is the ultimate item of value. Still in verse 35. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still, others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented, of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, and all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. God having provided something better for us that they should not be made perfect apart from us, I will read verses 1 and 2 of chapter 12. Therefore, we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight in the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, thinking nothing of the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. We aren't able to remove ourselves from all our trials in this physical life, and there is not a single person that does not deal with some sort of pain or suffering, especially not a person of faith. Our trials, however, are not in place to destroy us, but to perfect us and make us able to receive the highest honor of the promise from God. It would have been a whole lot easier to not give this message. This was probably by far the most emotionally taxing to prepare, but I do not believe in giving in to all the painful experiences that we have. We should still hope for good things in life. My wife and I may get to have a baby. But even if we do not, God does give good gifts to his children, and we should absolutely strive to be, to better ourselves and put ourselves in the proper situations to be able to receive those gifts. When the challenges inevitably come, we must maintain optimism because we understand that despite the drawbacks or setbacks we experience, we can have hope in the best gift of all which cannot be stolen from us. And in that gift there will be no more pain and no more tears. Please join me where we began in Revelation chapter 21. We will read chapter reread verse, starting in verse 1, we will go through chap verse 4, then we will end in the final verse of the Bible, chapter 22 and verse 21. Revelation 21:1. Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There will be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.
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