Good morning everybody – welcome to God Today. We are glad to have you here with us and a part of our God TV family. My name is Pastor Buford Lipscomb. I pastor Liberty Church in Pensacola, FL, as well as direct as a visionary leader for Liberty Network International. There I pastor some pastors in churches in the US and in many different countries.
It is so good to share a quick, encouraging word for you today. I want to talk to you quickly about one word that makes all the difference. A word that, too often, is understated, not appreciated, grossly understated in its value to us in our spiritual lives particularly, as well as to our personal lives. It is a Biblical matter that is misunderstood. A matter that on the surface, some will say, when you hear what the word is, “Oh, I knew about that. I do that. That’s all he is talking about, have that.” Hear me out filly, if you will, today. Because I have to say what i have to say could really revolutionize your life. It can lift your eyes from what you perceive to be the impossible, to really set those impossibilities to wings of life and possibility.
Romans 15:13 famously says, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him. So that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” The world’s idea of hope is empty, vague, just kind of wishful thinking. Everyday we use that kind of word. “I hope it won’t rain today, I hope my ride is on time. I hope I can get to class on time.” You can’t hardly go through a day without hearing or reading about hope. But, the hope that I am talking about today is a different kind of hope.
You know, off the coast of New England many years ago – this is a true story – the Submarine S-4 was rammed by a passing ship. The submarine sank quickly and settled in the seas on the bottom, in a place that would become its watery grave. The entire crew was trapped aboard the submarine. Ships immediately rushed from all directions to the sunken vessel, but it was all to no avail. The oxygen was leaking quickly from the ship. A deep sea diver was dispatched down to the shell of the ship to see if he could hear of any life remaining in the sunken submarine. As he put his helmeted head to the helm of the ship, he heard – he described – a tapping. Tap, tap, tap. Someone was alive on the inside. He immediately recognized it was Morse Code. They were tapping out a message: “Is there any hope? Is there any hope? Is there any hope?”
Today, I believe so many people, maybe you, people around you, people in your family, people that you work with – they are sending a message. Its sounds like something else, maybe it is hard to hear, but their message is, “Is there any hope?”
I am so glad, today, to share with you that there is hope. A hope not like the world’s empty and wishful thinking hope. A hope that we find in Christ. Hal Lindsey said many years ago and reported that, “Man can live about 40 days without food, about three days without water, about 8 minutes without air, but only one second without hope.” I tell you, today, I believe we need – as Christians, as believers in Christ – to share with the world that there is hope. His name is Jesus Christ. There is hope. When the Word itself changed, when Jesus came and died our place on the cross. The New Testament hope is defined as a vigorous expectation for a better future. That hope that is in us, if i had time I would read many of the scriptures that uses that. There is hope today. There is hope in Jesus Christ – it is beyond this world. Better than that empty hope we find around us.