Driving through a mountain pass this summer in the Colorado Rockies, Jack Hodges was leading the way on this incredibly narrow, rocky path that was no wider than our Jeeps when he radioed some strange instructions back to me.  He said, “If you lose control and start over the edge, please call ahead so I can get out of the way.”  I found his instructions a little discouraging; they were also ridiculous.  I assured him in no uncertain terms that, if I found myself headed over the edge at 12,000 feet with my family in tow, the last thing I was going to worry about was sharing that information with him. 

When you know you’re about to die, your priorities change quickly.  The same is true when you know that, no matter what, you’re going to live.  People who have no hope, tend to live in hopeless ways.  People who have hope live another way.  In his letter to the church at Thessalonica the apostle Paul reminded the believers that, because they were people whose destiny was with the resurrected Lord they would ultimately live, not die, and they should live like it now.  People practice deeds of darkness now only when darkness is their destiny. 

We recently took Cameron to Hurricane Harbor one last time before he had his wings clipped by a tonsillectomy.  Nancy and I turned him and his friend loose and had some fun, too.  We rode the Black Hole.  You sit on an inner tube made for two and slip into this tubular chute that circles wildly down to the water.  It’s pitch black inside.  Once you start you can’t see where you’re going, you can only feel yourself going down faster and faster.  It’s only fun because you know you’re going to come out at the bottom and fall safely into some cool water. 

But, what if you feel like your life is a wild ride into a black hole of meaningless living where you’re only slipping further down faster and faster?  What if, as far as you can see, there is no hope?  How do you live then?  It’s like, if we know now that no one is going to win the World Series, who cares who wins or loses between now and August 30?  If you know you can’t win, you won’t care how you play before you finally lose.  People practice deeds of darkness now only when darkness is their destiny.

Speaking to followers of Jesus, Paul said, “you . . . are not in darkness . . . for you are all children of light and children of the day.”  The New Testament often describes the time as Christ will return as “the day.”  We belong to that day; it possesses us.  We walk in the light now that only faith in Christ makes possible.  Someday, we will walk in the illumination of Christ’s visible presence.  If we are what the scripture says we are, children of the light now, children of the Day yet to come, then we have hope.  That will shape the way we live. 

Griffin has been dating a young lady this year who comes from a fine Christian home.  Several weeks ago her father invited Griffin to dinner and, along with his wife, gave the two sixteen year-olds some instructions regarding physical affection.  Simple, cut to the chase instructions.  “Nothing below the neck.  Nothing comes off.  Nothing lying down.”  Not bad, wouldn’t you agree?  But, Griffin came home looking a little sheepish that night.  What he had basically been told was, “Don’t do anything with my daughter you couldn’t do while I was watching.”  Out in the light.  If you can’t do whatever in full view of those who love you the most, you shouldn’t be doing it at all.

People of hope don’t have to sneak around.  One recovering alcoholic wrote that his experience with addiction had taught him that, “You’re only as sick as your secrets.”  (Michael J. Fox, Lucky Man, Hyperion, 2002, p. 224).  People of hope appreciate the difference between the dignity of privacy and the dark, dishonest sickness of secrets.  Parents keeping their door locked for sexual privacy teaches their children to dignify sex.  One spouse keeping the other spouse locked out of some secret, closeted part of their life is dishonesty in the darkness. 

People of hope keep walking further and further out into the light, where hope is, in anticipation of Jesus’ coming.  If you will, they can see the Son rising, the light of eternal dawn growing brighter by the minute.  They want to live with nothing left to hide and not too many roaches scurrying for cover when the light is turned on in the darkest closet of their soul.  They are committed to “spirit and soul and body (being) kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  But, they do more than just try to keep things clean.  Beyond a whole litany of do’s and don’ts, there are several words of instruction in this text about how people of hope should also live in proactive ways that extends their hope in Christ to others.  May I give you but two around which to gather all the others?

People of hope practice gratitude.  “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  If we want to know what the will of God for our lives is, ground zero is gratitude.  A commitment to being more aware of what God has done for us than what life has taken from us.  The starting point for truly holy living is gratitude.

At Hurricane Harbor, Nancy saw this gorgeous sleek blonde parading herself around in a drop-dead good-looking one-piece red suit.  Of course, I hadn’t noticed.  But, Nancy pointed her out to me and said, “That’s the body I want.”  Wisely, I took advantage of the moment to reassure Nancy that she has the body I want.  But, we had to admit that we’d both fought that battle of envy all day long.  A little taller, a little thinner, a little more here, a little less there.  But, when we realized that the only way we could have someone else’s body would be to take the life that went with it, we just decided we’d climb back into our own skin and thank God for what we did have. 

If the starting point for truly holy living is gratitude, then, conversely, the starting point for sin is ingratitude.  At the root of all lust, envy, greed, jealousy, whatever, is a failure to give thanks to God for what we do have.  Long before a man or woman commits adultery they stop thanking God for the life they do have and, by the way, are shortly about to lose forever.  How would the world of baseball change if the players who already makes an average of $2.4 million per year and the owners who can afford to pay it opened their negotiations with a word of prayer, thanking God for his bounty.  How would our lives change, our church, our families, our world if we did the same?  People of hope live with gratitude at the gravitational center of their soul. 

Giving “thanks in all circumstances” doesn’t mean that we thank God for everything that happens.  That’s sick.  It does mean that we choose to see life from the perspective that, no matter what, God has always given more than life could take.  There is no hope for hope otherwise.  What if we lived by this self-imposed rule - a rule that said, “I will not allow myself to say one critical or negative thing about another person or situation until I have first brought that person or situation to God in prayer?”  In the text, “pray without ceasing” precedes giving “thanks in all circumstances.”  Prayer is about being God-centered in our thinking.  Holy thankfulness is only possible from a God-centered perspective.  If we are not praying we are more aware of our circumstances than we are of God and there is no way to be a thankful person.  If we lived by the rule of praying before complaining, most complaining would be stillborn.  How would that change our lives, our church, our world?  People of hope are people who practice gratitude.

People of hope are also people who encourage each other.  A few years ago Nancy and I took the ferry across Galveston Bay.  I have rich memories from my childhood with that experience and I just wanted to share it with her.  It takes about twenty minutes to get across the bay and you can park your car, get out and feed the seagulls that trail the ferry.  I was reminded that day of something I’d learned even in childhood.  When you feed the seagulls, you should throw your bread as far away from you as possible and let them chase it.  You should never hold your bread straight up where the seagulls will come to you and gather directly over your head.  Seagulls have a natural tendency to do very nasty things to anyone who gets too close.  Some people do, too.

It ought to make us wonder.  What happens to people who get close to us?  Is it nasty?  Do they get dumped on?  Or, do they feel encouraged, as though a load were lifted, because they’d been with us?  To always have a critical word, a negative thought, is discouraging and divisive in any relationship.  People of hope shouldn’t be discouraging people to be around, people we have to keep at arm’s length to stay safe.  They see light of the Day coming.  They know their destiny.  What God has done and is going to do so captivates their thoughts that, like a thunderstorm brings cool relief from summer’s heat, they bring the relief of a hopeful spirit to everyone who gets close.  It ought to be that way and we are even commanded to work toward it.  Encouragement means, listen to the word, infusing courage into another.  Its meaning is especially visible in this scripture.  “Encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with all of them.  See that none of you repays evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to all.”  Encouragement means responding with grace to the weakness in others.  It means saying to them, if you are about to lose control and go over the edge, give me a call and I’ll be there waiting just before you do. 

Look around, is it not true that the people who have had the greatest influence in our lives are those who have encouraged rather than discouraged us?  At school, at work, at home and even at church, the people who wield the greatest influence are those who encourage others.  Most people come to church pretty beaten up by what has happened that week.  Any Sunday, the people who do the most eternal good in this place are those who look for people whose greatest need is a word of encouragement and find a way to give it. 

A good friend once wrote that, “Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but that you will turn out well, regardless of how it turns out.  Our lives, especially our suffering, are not tragedies to be fixed but mysteries to be lived with hope in a God who loves us enough to suffer for us, in our place, even though we don’t deserve it.”  (George Mason, This Hope Floats, The Wilshire Pulpit, Wilshire Baptist Church, Dallas, TX, August 8, 1999)  Do you believe that?  That you’re going to be OK?  West Nile virus or no?  Economic woes or no?  Family crisis or no?  Baseball season or no?  Weapons of mass destruction or no?  Do we really believe we’re going to be OK?  That God, in Christ, has once and for all destroyed the only thing that could ultimately destroy us.  “Death has been swallowed up in victory (1 Corinthians 15:54).”  Christ is coming again, soon.  Sooner than we can possibly believe.  It won’t be long.  We’re free.  In Christ, we have hope.  We’re going to be OK.  Do we believe that?

If we do, if we are people of hope, then when we come to this place to worship this is what we will experience.  We’ll see the light getting brighter, dark closets opening and people coming out.  Prayers and songs of thanksgiving will fill the air.  And, always will be heard an encouraging word.  If we are people of hope. 

Well, are we?