We’ve been learning quite a bit about hope recently; what hope is, what it looks like to maintain hope, what hope is able to accomplish for us, where our hope needs to be placed, how to hang onto hope through loss and betrayal, etc.  This week, God challenged me a bit, and I’m going to pass that challenge on to you.

Usually when I think of hope, it is due to circumstances beyond my control.  Something happened to me or someone let me down and I am left in need and hoping in the Lord to meet that need in some way.  Until now, I never really considered the need for hope when we act wrongly.

When I make a bad decision or act in rebellion, when I sin and am suffering the consequences, I have always just felt like basically, “Well, I’m getting what I deserve.”  Why would need or choose to have hope in that situation?  Why would I put my hope in God to undo the very same consequences that He chose put in place?  However, we can do so and we should do so!  In fact, God expects us to still put our hope in Him in the midst of His discipline.

God took me through much of the Old Testament as I was seeking after Him for the message today and I didn’t really understand at first what He was revealing to me.  Then in light of this, I understood.  God’s people have a long and consistent history that repeats itself over and over.

We sin against God, God brings about consequences for our sin, we pity ourselves for a while and don’t really accept the responsibility for it, we come to our senses and repent, God forgives and restores us.  This awful cycle happens several times over throughout the Old Testament and it unfortunately still continues today.  It’s not usually on a national scale today, but it very much so happens on a personal scale.

If we maintain the mindset that I had regarding the Lord’s discipline, then we completely miss the heart of God and His intent with discipline and we will never break this cycle!  Some have dismissed this cycle as an issue under the old covenant that was resolved when Jesus fulfilled it.  However, the God of the old covenant is the same God of the new covenant and He still disciplines His people because He still loves His people.  In fact, Paul writes:

Hebrews 12:7-13

7 Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? 8 If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all. 9 Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! 10 They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. 11 No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

12 Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 13 “Make level paths for your feet,” so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.

So as we choose to be trained through discipline, we can and should actually turn to God and put our hope in Him that our unpleasant and painful season of discipline will end in our healing.  The purpose of discipline is to turn our hearts back to God, not drive us away from Him.  The purpose of discipline is to strengthen us and not to break us.  The purpose of discipline is to produce righteousness and peace, not to prove our unrighteousness and produce chaos.

We’re learning again this morning how to put our hope in God, but when we have sinned.  We’re going to be encouraged in how to view God as our refuge and how to enter into that safe covering.

When God created everything, He created it with boundaries.  Those boundaries are a blessing and work together to provide for us a natural refuge.  He created the earth to spin at just the right speed so that