When things aren't going particularly well in our lives – the things that happens, is that we lose sight of our hopes and dreams for the future. And that's devastating. We need to know that there's a plan.

These days' people are saying that one of the biggest issues in their lives is stress. We stress about this, we stress about that and you know, sometimes the things we are stressing about they're very real. There are people listening today whose very lives are in danger, there are people listening today who are facing bankruptcy or perhaps the banks foreclosed on their mortgage. There are people listening today who don't know where their next morsel of food is coming from, who's children are facing death because of a lack of clean water and medical services. And yet other times, we just kind of stress over the future because we live in an inheritantly uncertain world.

We don't know what's going to happen tomorrow; "Am I going to have enough money? Will I get that promotion? Will I find a marriage partner? Will my kids grow up okay?" On and on and on, I often make the observation that if one small part of our lives has some uncertainty in it, even though every other part of our life can be chugging along just fine, then we have a problem and we're going to experience stress. What we need in this uncertain world is, well some certainty, don't you think? We need something or someone to depend on.

I often get this thing, "Well, you know, religion is just a crux, it's for losers" and that's fine by me because I'm not a great fan of religion, I'm not into religious stuff. For me, most of my life, I was far from being a loser. I always used to pride myself that whatever I turned my hand to I'd try to be the very best at doing it that there was. And that was often the case.

But I have to tell you, as successful as I purported to be I always had a feeling of, well this sense of uncertainty eating away in me. Even if things were going really well in my life, stress gnawed away inside me. So many people are like that, the problem with that is that you can't, well you can't have peace when that's going on, you can never rest on the inside, you're always worrying and stressing over something.

Imagine if, in life, despite all the things that are going on because so often you know, we can't change those things, they just happen but if, despite everything that was going on, we could have peace, real peace, you and I. Just stop and think about that proposition for a moment, isn't it awesome? When the storm clouds are gathering on the horizon and you know a storm is about to hit but inside we have a quiet confidence that we're going to ride out that storm.

Okay, that's why today and over this week and next week we're going to take a look at ten promises that we can depend on. Ten promises, promises made by God that, come what may, you and I can depend on.

I don't where you're at in life but I ask you to approach this with an open mind, my prayer is that over these coming days, something amazing is going to happen in our hearts. That God would put a solid foundation in our hearts, a solid ground beneath our feet as we take a hold of these ten promises of God. Promises that I can depend on, promises that you can depend on. And the first one is this, here is a promise from God; I have a plan for you.

See, when we're stressed, so often what happens is we can't see our way ahead to a safe and a peaceful future. All we can see is the here and now, all we can imagine is all the bad things that are going to happen to us. If you're in a marriage relationship that's heading towards the rocks, if you've got a teenager who's going through some bad stuff, if you're under stress at work, whatever it is, "oh, will it ever get any better?" Well, will it?

Here's a promise that God made to Israel. Israel had mucked up in their lives, you know they'd turned their backs on God and so God let the B

Do you know what I love about you? I love the fact that you're so different to me. You have different motivations and abilities hardwired into your DNA. You've been through different experiences that've shaped who you are. Although, sadly, many people see their gifts, their abilities, as being quite insignificant compared to others. But that's a big mistake!

During the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, Vasily Arkhipov was second-in-command on a Soviet submarine armed with nuclear weapons. Believing that war had already broken out, the crew prepared to launch. Two senior officers approved—but Soviet protocol required three. Arkhipov alone refused. He insisted on surfacing and awaiting orders.

He wasn't the highest-ranking officer, nor a politician or scientist—just a composed naval officer with moral courage and the unlikely quality of calmness under pressure. His restraint, seen as weakness by some, saved the world from destruction.

1 Peter 4:10 God has shown you his grace in many different ways. So be good servants and use whatever gift he has given you in a way that will best serve each other.

Let's say you're Vasily in that submarine. The pressure's on. Your captain is ordering you to comply. In that moment, how significant do you consider your natural quality of calmness to be? You get the point, yeah?

You've been given natural gifts and abilities that those around you don't have. And the job God's given you is to use them, no matter how seemingly insignificant they may appear to you, in a way that best serves others.

We need you. So please, pass on what you've been given.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

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I wonder, what are your thoughts about the supernatural dimension to life. Is there such a thing? Or is it just a bunch of old hocus-pocus, an unwelcome relic of medieval times? What do you think?

As we each consider the realities of our lives, they all seem pretty ordinary. We're born, grow up, go to school, do what we're doing now, and one day … our lives on this earth will come to an end. That's how it goes.

And let's face it; you're dealing with this, that and the other thing. Supernatural? I don't think so. Of course we each need some moral framework by which to live our lives … some people choose secular humanism, Buddhism, Islam, Shinto … and a good many people choose Christianity.

And yet, Christianity isn't just some moral framework to be debated alongside the others. At its heart, it's completely about supernatural salvation.

Hebrews 9:27-28 Everyone must die once. Then they are judged. So Christ was offered as a sacrifice one time to take away the sins of many people. And he will come a second time, but not to offer himself for sin. He will come the second time to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him.

Jesus isn't merely some wise old prophet with good morals. He's the Son of God who died on a Cross to pay the price of our sin, so that we can be forgiven, justly, by God. And no amount of good morals will get you into heaven. Heaven, after all, is a supernatural realm that requires a supernatural key. Jesus.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

When a boy in Albania asked how to forgive classmates who kept hurting him, God answered through a radio message, a quiet car ride, and a dinner table conversation his family will never forget.

It's amazing how powerful relationships can be in shaping who we become. The best relationships help us discover the foundational truths of life "on the job" so to speak, amidst the realities, the pressures, the trials of life.

Sophie Scholl was initially swept up in the nationalistic fervour of Nazi Germany. But her worldview began to change through heartfelt conversations with her brother, Hans, who'd begun to see through the propaganda. As their relationship deepened, they explored Scripture together, read Christian thinkers like Augustine and Kierkegaard, and came to see truth as something that had to be lived out—even at great cost.

Their bond gave her the courage to join the resistance, ultimately leading to her execution at age 21. Sophie's discovery of truth was forged not in isolation, but in relationship—human and divine.

Just after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection, two disciples were walking along the road to Ameaus, discussing the traumatic events of the Passover festival. Though Jesus drew alongside them He was the last person they expected to meet, so they didn't recognise Him. But at dinner time ...

Luke 24:30-32 When he was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them. And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. And he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, "Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?" ESV

There's nothing - absolutely nothing! - like a personal encounter with Jesus along the road of life to make God's truth burn in your heart. Nothing. Jesus.

That's God's Word. Fresh … for you … today.

What you and I want, is life on our terms. We do…and yet, we can't for the most part have that. And it's the same with God. Before we can take a hold of all His blessings, we have to let go of a whole bunch of other stuff …

Over these last two weeks we've spent some time, each day, exploring different aspects of a story that kind of talks about having solid ground under our feet; the story of a simple woman with a simple heart who, in the midst of the greatest storm of her life, honoured God. Her name is Hannah. And a story of a man, a priest over all of Israel, who should have honoured God. He was a priest after all and yet allowed his sons to get away with wickedness that ultimately, God wouldn't tolerate and both Hannah and Eli reaped what they'd sown.

The priest should have been on solid ground but he was cut off, he and all his descendants. The woman, she was a nobody, she had no right to expect solid ground beneath her feet in her storm and yet she honoured God and He honoured her. That's the crux of it, because as we read this story and you can read it in the first few chapters of the book of 1 Samuel in the Old Testament, the pivot on which it turns is this statement from God in chapter 2 of 1 Samuel. God says:

I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

So what does that mean for you and me, here and now? What does it mean?

You and I, deep down, come on lets face it, we're basically selfish creatures. Now perhaps you're a whole bunch further down the track than me in dealing with that but come on, deep down we want our way, we want our needs to be met, we want our comfort, we were born that way. And every now and then you meet someone who seems like a saint and you think, "boy, that could never apply to them" but deep down, deep down it does. And God comes along and says, "I'm God, I am who I am, that's it!" and God is to be honoured, to be respected to be feared, to be revered.

It's so counter to our popular culture, it's so completely opposite. You can't dress this up; you can't somehow make it instantly palatable to the popular psyche because it's totally the opposite of what we're told by the advertising industry. It's totally opposite to the mantra of this age, that it's all about me and I'm worth it.

Worship's a funny word, it means "to bow down and to honour" and so we have a clash between popular thought, "its all about me" and honouring God. I can never make those two the same because they're totally different and most of my life, I lived by the former, "it's all about me". Honour! Honour! Get out of here. Bow down! Worship! See this is not something people do on Sunday morning at Church. It's something that God calls us to do with our lives in all the circumstances of life, on the good days and the bad days and the sunny days and the rainy days and the calm days and the storm days.

It's something that we've seen over and over and over again, this woman Hannah did and honouring God is completely the opposite of pride, it's the complete opposite and you and I, no matter what we happen to believe or not believe, are infected by the mantra of this age. And so honouring God is foreign to our natural inclination, completely in every department because we live and breathe the "me" mantra.

Let me give you a couple of pictures of how different it is. The first one comes from a story that happened quite a few years after Hannah and Eli. You can read about it in 2 Samuel chapter 24, it's about King David. He's done something stupid and he's been trusting in his power instead of Gods power and he comes to make an offering to God and he goes to a place, a threshing floor. He wants to make an offering and the owner of this threshing floor says, "here, take whatever you want. The wood, the place, the animals, I'll give it all to you so you can make this offer

When shame stops being about what you did and starts feeling like who you are, discover what God’s voice actually says about your worth and your future.

If only we could have God on our terms. You know, He blesses you when you need blessing and the rest of the time, He's just kind of there when you need Him. Wouldn't that be nice? But – well, it's not like that.

Have you ever wanted something in life, I mean really, really, really wanted it and then, you finally get it and you just want to give it back. I think we've all experienced that at some point and you know, I think that for some people, it can be the case with God. I know people, lots of people who hunger to be close to God. I know there are people listening today, perhaps you're one of them and all their lives they've wanted "God", whatever that means. But can I tell you something, even something really good, I mean really, really good like God, well it can be a shock to the system.

And the reason is that we sometimes have this idealised unrealistic notion of what that good thing would be like. Take the young woman who wants, more than anything else, to be married and she finally meets her knight in shining armour and marries him and a year later she's wondering what happened to her ideas of romance 24x7. Today on the program we're going to take a look at some people who got God and couldn't wait to give Him back.

We've been looking over this last week and a half, at the stories of a woman called Hannah who honoured God, she poured her heart out to Him when she was in pain and God honoured her. And on the other side there was a guy called Eli and his sons who were around Hannah at the time and they didn't honour God and they reaped their just rewards. And the whole story of Hannah and Eli kind of pivots on this one passage. It's in 1 Samuel, in the Bible, chapter 2, verse 30 and God says:

I will honour those who honour me but those who despise me will be treated with contempt.

And we've seen over this last week and a half how that central reality has played itself out in the lives of Hannah and Samuel, who were blessed by God and Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, who weren't. And you know, in particular, this plays itself out in the storms of life. Eli and his sons, Hophni and Phinehas, were living the life of Riley. They were the priests over Israel, they should have been bringing Israel to God and yet they plundered the sacrifices and they slept with prostitutes and those three, they died, we saw that yesterday on the program.

Their job was to be shepherd of the nation of Israel, shepherding them towards God. Instead they led them to a place of defeat and again, we saw on the program in 1 Samuel chapter 4, that the Philistines attacked and Israel thinks, "ah well, God's always on our side and so we'll go to battle" and all of a sudden, 30,000 of their soldiers are killed. The Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines, the place of the presence of God and strangely, when that happens, the Philistines kind of realise, with a sense of foreboding, when the Philistines learned that the Ark of the Lord had come into the Israelites camp, they were afraid.

"A God has come into the camp", they said. "We're in trouble! Nothing like that has ever happened before. Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty Gods?"

See, those instincts were right but anyway, the Ark of the Covenant comes into the Israelite camp and then the Israelites and the Philistines went into battle and the Philistines won. A huge defeat, 30,000 soldiers of the Israelites are dead and the Covenant, the Ark of the Covenant is captured by the Philistines. Hmm, it turns out they should have gone with their initial instincts lets have a read of what happens in 1 Samuel chapter 5:

After the Philistines had captured the Ark of God, they took it from Ebenezer to Ashdod. Then they carried the Ark into Dagon's temple and set it beside their God, Dagon and wh