Transforming Fear into Hope Through Jesus' Revolution

i started a friend today who said the basic message that we're getting in our world today is fear fear fear and i think that's true fear is everywhere kovit is still with us way longer than anybody thought and has been surging again nobody seems to know exactly what to do with it or what's going to come next inflation has come back in a way that we haven't seen for decades and nobody seems quite sure what to do with the economy some people think they're sure but it doesn't seem like anybody knows for sure [00:00:26]

hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism it is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out in short i think the deepest and most important form of hope the only one that can keep us above water and urge us to good works is something we get as it were from elsewhere [00:02:12]

if we make optimism the foundation of our life we are forever at the mercy of our circumstances and the pollyannas among us will avoid hard truths to try to make things look better than they actually are the cynics among us will allow hard truths to cause them to become passive or withdrawn or to attack others we have to have hope but that hope has to be built on something that is deeper than just optimism [00:02:43]

we are on this journey together through the renovation of the heart this book by dallas willard learning about what it is that gives hope to the human spirit part of what dallas talks about in that first chapter is every approach to human life that is deeply thoughtful recognizes that there is a problem not just on the outside of us but inside of us [00:03:18]

now dallas says we must place jesus right alongside all of those thinkers he says is right at this point lies the inescapable relevance of jesus to human life about two thousand years ago he gathered his little group of friends and trainees on the galilean hillsides and sent them out to teach all the nations that is to make students [00:05:08]

his objective is eventually to bring all human life on earth under the direction of his wisdom goodness and power as part of god's eternal plan for the universe now let me ask you what other human being who's ever lived had an objective like that i want to bring all of human life on earth under the direction of my wisdom and goodness seriously napoleon never thought of that buddha never said something like that only jesus [00:05:48]

we must make no mistake about this in sending out his trainees he set a foot a perpetual world revolution one that is still in process and will continue until god's will is done on earth as it is in heaven in america ukraine and china in basements with addicts with people with whom there is plenty wrong [00:06:13]

as this revolution culminates all the forces of evil known to mankind will be defeated and the goodness of god will be known accepted and joyously conformed to in every aspect of human life he has chosen to accomplish this with and in part through his students that is you and me there has never been a movement like this [00:06:40]

he jesus is not concerned to attack existing economic or political institutions the revolution he sought was a far deeper one without which reforms could only be superficial and transitory if he could cleanse the human heart of selfish desire cruelty and lust utopia would come of itself and all those institutions that rise out of human greed and violence and the consequent need for law would disappear [00:07:58]

because he alone brings a way of life that can produce change within and that dimension of my life that is so deep that mostly i do not understand it but out of which we all live out of which love and compassion and generosity where fear and greed and envy and hatred emerge only jesus addresses this only he has captivated human minds and hearts in such a way that the revolution is still going on 2 000 years later [00:09:03]

spiritual formation in christ is therefore not dallas rights a mysterious irrational possibly hysterical love that because sometimes in churches it is process something that strikes like lightning whenever wherever it will or something that is magically conferred upon us spiritual experiences paul on the damascus road and so on do not constitute spiritual formation [00:09:41]

what we are pursuing is to be formed spiritually from within so my invitation today as we're on this road together is for me for you to take that world within that reality of your thoughts and feelings that tends to lie even beyond your own awareness and simply bring it to jesus because now we're under the easy oak we want to be immersed in his love through our practices and relationships experiences so that that love can flow out of us [00:10:18]