Speaker: Steve Anderson

CHECKMATE

Good morning, everyone. My name is Steve Anderson. I’m on the teaching team here at Vintage, and it’s been a minute since I’ve been up here. And we have a growing church, that means a lot of people in the crowd don’t even know who I am. Let me just give you a short introduction. 

I, along with Gary Peters, am one of the gray hairs of the teaching team. In the next couple weeks, I’ll be experiencing my thirty-eighth wedding anniversary and the birth of my fifth grandchild. Looking forward to that. 

So, when I saw where I was going to land on the teaching schedule, and realizing it was going to be kind of towards the end of the Book of Revelation, there was a good chance we were going to be done with Revelation and about ready to move into the Book of Titus. 

And I went to Pastor Greg, and I said, If we’re done with Revelation, I have, I believe, a word for our church, and if he’d be okay with me bringing that to you, and he said, By all means. 

LIFE HAPPENS

You know, he just talked about being grateful and having this gratitude for the good things that God is doing in our lives, and that is something that we should be doing every single day. But how many people know that there are people in this room today that are either going through it or have gone through it, and it is very difficult? Can I hear an amen on that? 

In the past year, I’ve just been noticing an increase in a lot of different things. A close friend of mine is in the crowd today, she is on the other side right now of her battle with cancer. And there’s more and more stories in this room of people that are right now going through cancer. 

And I’m just seeing, I can’t believe the number of instances where we’re seeing this ugly disease rise up. Lots of sickness and trauma, unexplained conditions of pain, where it’s undiagnosed– doctors can’t figure it out. 

My daughter is going through this right now. She was in the emergency room again yesterday with this intense pain, and they think they’ve narrowed it down to what they think it might be. 

Infants fighting for their lives, young adults. A good close friend of mine, his son, in his thirties, is in kidney failure right now. 

Infertility. Lots of stories of infertility. Young couples trying to have kids, and they just can’t get there, And they’re wondering, Why? What’s going on? We’re doing all the right things. Unexplained. 

Marital issues. Spouses making decisions to leave marriages. Some even leaving the faith, and that leads to them leaving their marriage. Close friend of mine, long time in ministry, his wife just decides she doesn’t want to serve Jesus anymore, and the marriage is over. That affects a lot of people. 

We could spend the entire morning going around the room, identifying more and more things– finances, children, grandchildren, things with your work. Some of you parents, you’ve done it the right way, raise a child in the way they should go, and then all of a sudden, your kids decide that they’re not going to go that way. And you hold your hands up and go, Lord, what did we do wrong? 

Like I said, we’re either going through it, have gone through it, or we will go through it. To paraphrase the famous bumper sticker, Life happens. Sometimes, it blindsides us. Sometimes, we bring it on ourselves, but many times, we don’t bring it on ourselves. And then it poses the question, why do bad things happen to good people? 

And there are people, skeptics of Christianity, that will use that very question to question God and question the Christian faith. If God is so good, if He exists, why do bad things happen to good people?

I got a text this week from a friend that goes to Vintage, and someone very close to him is going through it health-wise, and has been going through it for quite some time, and has many friends that are going through it. And this person said to my friend, How could a God allow this to happen? Nothing makes sense anymore. 

One thing is for certain, though: we have an adversary, and that adversary has come to steal, kill, and destroy. He has come to steal our hope in the hopes of destroying our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

When Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life more abundantly,” He was saying, in reference to that Scripture, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come to give life, an abundant life.” 

FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE

In our Christian walk, we have two Trinities, I believe, that are foundational to our faith. The first Trinity is the obvious one: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father that gave us the Son, the Son that gave up His life, and the Spirit that raised Him from the dead. 

That’s the Trinity that is foundational to our salvation, all centered around the Lordship and the Kingship of Jesus Christ, the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. And as we just found out in the Book of Revelation, there is nothing that can come against that. 

The kingdoms of darkness and the kingdoms of this world are no match for the Kingdom of Heaven. The devil is outgunned, and he is outmatched even before the battle begins. They have no choice. When I say they, I’m talking about the spirits of darkness, they have no choice but to take the battle elsewhere. 

And that brings us to the second Trinity: in 1 Corinthians 13, it says this: Abide in these: faith, hope and love.” 

This is where the battles of everyday life occur. God’s Kingdom cannot be shaken, but our faith, hope, and love surely can. It’s a three-legged stool, and if you can knock out one of those legs, things begin to wobble, and then the other leg begins to fall, and then there’s nothing to stand on. 

Today, I would like to focus on what I think is the forgotten one of these three, and that is hope. 

See, faith and love are more easily defined. Love is defined in 1 Corinthians 13, that’s the love chapter. Faith is identified in Hebrews 11, that’s the faith chapter. And Hebrews 11:1 says this: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, and the conviction of things not seen.” 

So, we see a relationship in that Scripture of faith and hope. If you go back to love, we have a relationship between love and faith, in John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son that who would ever believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” 

So, there’s a relationship between faith and love, and now we see there’s a relationship between hope and faith. But there’s no hope chapter. But we’re still supposed to abide in it. 

LIFE TESTS HOPE

So, let’s dive a little bit deeper into this thing called hope. I believe that hope is the thing that keeps us connected from where we are to where we’re going. Let me say that again: hope is the thing that keeps us connected from where we are to where we’re going. 

And I believe it’s captured in two verses. See, when I talk about hope of where we are to where we’re going, I’m talking about hope on earth, and I’m talking about hope as it relates to our eternal life in Heaven. 

Jeremiah 29:11 says this: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” If you go back to the first of the year, Pastor Greg taught on Jeremiah 29. That is hope in our life here on earth. 

And then 1 Corinthians 15:19-20 says this: “If we have hoped in Christ only in this life, we are of all people most to be pitied. But the fact is, Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.” That’s our hope of eternal life through His resurrection. 

But life happens. And when life happens, if we don’t handle it correctly, it can affect both hopes. Things don’t turn out like we had hoped. 

Think back to the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. It blindsided the disciples, especially Peter. Wasn’t supposed to be this way. This isn’t what we hoped for. This isn’t what we thought it was going to be. We thought it was going to play out differently, Jesus. 

Peter said, Jesus, I’m ready to fight for you. Jesus said, You’ll deny me three times. And when that happened, the Scripture tells us that Peter went away in shame. He entered into a potential time of serious darkness in his life because his hope had been lost in what had just taken place. 

Would he end up like Judas, or would Peter fulfill the promise that Jesus had proclaimed over him? See, life’s intersections become life’s inflection points. Which path will I end up on? 

Hopelessness has the power to take us to the depths of darkness and despair when we have more trust in our circumstances and our environment. 

Proverbs 13:12 says this: “Hope deferred (or hope delayed) makes the heart sick.” That word sick in the Hebrew is chalah. It means to be worn, afflicted, and infirmed– that’s figuratively– but 

it’s also defined causatively: grieved, turn away, or avoid. 

That word sick means that it has the potential to affect us, both physically and emotionally. And our minds begin to take over. Our thoughts and imaginations begin to run rampant. And we begin to question God and His very existence. 

Hope deferred, if it’s not taken care of, turns into a loss of hope. And a loss of hope leads to depression. 

I decided to dig a little deeper on depression. My dad suffered from depression, so I know a little bit about it. I went to the latest Gallup poll to see just how many people is this affecting? Worldwide, the number of people that are either going through depression or have gone through depression is four percent. I looked at that, I went, That’s not bad. That seems low, though. 

So, I said, Well, what’s the number in the United States? Thirty percent. Thirty percent of the people in this country, when the number is four percent worldwide, but in this country, thirty percent. That’s staggering. 

Why is that? Well, my opinion is we’ve been so blessed, and we have so much compared to the rest of the world, that we begin to take things for granted. To believe our desires will always be fulfilled, and not just fulfilled, but fulfilled instantly, not deferred. That God moves as we direct Him. That’s the prosperity gospel. 

When I was saved in the 1970s, I was saved in the midst of the prosperity movement, the prosperity gospel, the name and claim it. Can I tell you that that has been a very unhealthy part of the church? And if I just offended you, I’m sorry– not. 

It needs to be pointed out that that is unscriptural and unhealthy. Satan has had a field day in that because he begins to take over in our mind, things aren’t turning out the way that you thought or the way that they should. So, the question then becomes, what can we do to avoid going down this path of hopelessness? 

HOPE AND TRUST

So, let’s dive a little deeper into this thing called hope. I believe there is one major key. So, I decided to find out, Okay, well, what’s the worldly definition of hope? So, I went to AI, to the internet. What does AI have to say about hope? And I decided to go to Grok and not ChatGPT because I trust Elon Musk more than I trust Sam Altman. 

And here’s what Grok on X said when I typed in: What is the definition of hope? Now listen to this, this is really good. “Hope is the expectation or desire for a positive outcome, often in the face of uncertainty or adversity, grounded in the belief that something good is possible. It involves optimism, trust–” hold on to that word– “and a forward-thinking mindset distinct from mere wishing by its active emotional investment in a better future.” 

That’s really good. There’s a lot of Scripture in there. In the New Testament, the word hope is the Greek word elpis, and it means confident expectation, or trust in God’s promises, provide strength, and perseverance amidst trials. 

In the Old Testament, it’s the Hebrew word Tikvah, which means a cord or rope that binds or holds two things together, expectant waiting or confident anticipation of a positive outcome, a trust in God and His promises. 

So, as faith and hope are connected, so are hope and trust. Maintaining hope or even restoring hope comes down to one simple thing: and that is trust. I don’t see it, I don’t feel it, I don’t get it, I don’t understand it, but I trust that God does, and I trust that He’s going to work it out. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 says this: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” 

There’s three keys right there. Number one: don’t try to understand everything. Number two: keep acknowledging God in everything. And number three: He will get us pointed in the right direction. We still have a choice at that fork in the road, though, He’ll lead us to the path. Which path am I going to take? 

Just like the Israelites at the edge of the Promised Land, God brought them there. God’s promise was, Just go in and take it. For some reason, they decided to send spies in– that wasn’t God’s directive. They decided to go in. They see all these obstacles, and they decide that’s not what they want to do. So, instead of going forward into the land, they decided to stay put, and not even that, just turned around and said, You know what? It’s better for us back in Egypt. 

Forward thinking. When I was studying depression, they said the key to getting out of depression is to be forward thinking and not backward thinking. Paul said this in Philippians 3, he said: “I forget what lies behind–” he had a past– “forget what lies behind, I press on to what lies ahead. I press on to the upward call of Jesus Christ in my life.” 

THE ULTIMATE CHESS GRANDMASTER

Forward-thinking is crucial. God is always moving with strategy and with purpose, and it’s sometimes at a level that we cannot understand. I like to call God the Ultimate Chess Grandmaster. 

How many have played chess? How many don’t understand chess? It’s too complicated. You got this board, you got all these pieces, they move in different directions. It’s complicated. I love chess, but I’m not that great at it. And when I come against somebody that’s really good at it, I’m done in a minute. 

I love this story about Bobby Fischer. If you know who Bobby Fischer is, he was considered one of the greats in chess. But when he was twelve years old, he was invited to play in the Rosenwald Memorial chess classic in New York City in 1956. 

He had just won the United States National Junior Championship, and because of that, he was this prodigy that everybody was fascinated with. They invited him to this tournament where there were only twelve players, and they were twelve of the best players in the world. 

And everybody was looking forward to one particular match, and that was Bobby Fischer, the thirteen-year-old, against the United States National Champion, Donald Byrne. So much anticipation for this match that they kind of stopped what they were doing so all of the observers could take part in this match and just look and see what was going to happen. 

And in the early stages of this match, if you played chess before, there’s things called openings, where the opening is crucial to how the rest of the match is going to go. And so, each player is doing their openings and positioning their pieces. 

But then, at move seventeen, Bobby Fischer moved his queen out into a vulnerable area, and the observers watching the match went, What is he doing? Why did he do that? He’s going to lose his queen. The next move, Donald Byrne takes the queen, and everyone said, The match is over. 

Two more moves after that, Bobby Fischer had check on his opponent, and everyone said, How did that just happen? Where did that come from? The series of moves after that, it was check, check, check, and Donald Byrne was on the run while his queen lay idle, Bobby Fischer’s queen laid off the board, wasn’t even in play, yet Bobby Fischer was in control of the match, and at move forty one, Bobby Fischer had checkmate. 

Everybody was stunned. One observer wrote this: Byrne takes the queen, hoping to outplay his thirteen-year-old opponent in the ensuing complications, but Fisher gets far too much for it, leaving Byrne with a hopeless game.” That match has since been called the Game of the Century. 

Fischer later said this– listen to this: “I saw the victory, but it meant sacrificing the queen.” Two years later, he became the youngest ever grandmaster at age fifteen, he had an uncanny ability to see the board, look at all the pieces, envision the moves counter the opponent, win the match, all at a level that is beyond most people’s understanding. 

GOD’S ENDGAME

Now, envision the Creator of the world playing out your life at a level that is beyond comprehension, that is beyond understanding. Isaiah 55:9 says this: “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.” 

See, God is not just playing single-dimensional chess in our lives. He’s playing multiple chess, multiple levels, moves and counter-moves that His opponent cannot foresee or recover from. But there are also moves that involve sacrifice at times, moves that we don’t understand. 

See, life’s a journey that can look crazy and hopeless at times, but He has an end game. God has an end game. And that’s when we have to get back to that one thing: trust. “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, don’t lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” 

It’s then we will see His character, it’s then we will see His wisdom, and it’s then we will experience His peace. 

Philippians 4:6-7 says this– New Living Translation, I love this translation of this Scripture– “Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank him for what he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and your minds as you live in Christ Jesus.” 

Bill Johnson, the senior pastor at Bethel Church in California, says this: “If we want peace that passes understanding, we have to give up our right to understand.” I’ll say that again: if we want peace that passes understanding, we have to give up our right to understand. 

In closing, I want to say this: I want to encourage all of you, especially those of you that are dealing with difficult situations right now, the key to not losing hope is to trust Him no matter what, even if your hope is being deferred. 

And you may say, Well, that hope’s been deferred a long, long time. Keep hanging in there, keep hanging in there because God has an end game. I don’t know what that end game is, but He has an end game, and He’s got checkmate somewhere along the line for you. 

There have been several times in my life where life has hit me across the head like a two-by-four. One time in particular, where I did nothing wrong, but it sent me into the depths of darkness and despair, so badly that my family was concerned about me. 

And because of my family and my friends encouraging me and getting me back, grounded, I got back to that Scripture in Proverbs 3, I have to trust even though I don’t understand what’s going on, Lord, I have to trust You. 

I didn’t understand it then. I still don’t understand it now. But my job isn’t to understand. My job is to trust. And I stand today before you as a testimony of God’s faithfulness and that He is trustworthy. He is my Savior, He’s my Lord, but He is also my hope. 

DON’T LOSE HOPE

I shared this story in the first service, and I’ll close things off with it in this service as well. When I was pastoring many years ago, a guy in my men’s ministry by the name of Mike Callistro, he was just an amazing man. 

I was so excited to see him just grow in the Lord through our men’s ministry. He decided that serving Christ was so exciting and so important, and he just jumped into everything that we were doing in our men’s ministry. I was so excited to see him thriving. 

And then, all of a sudden, he got diagnosed with ALS. My mom died of ALS. I know how gruesome it is. There’s no cure for ALS unless there’s a supernatural miracle from Heaven. Saw my mom wither away to nothing. The same thing was happening to Mike. 

And here’s a man where everything was going right, and then all of a sudden, things were going wrong. And he was at a fork in the road, and he had a choice: I can either shake my fist at God, or I can raise my hands up towards God. He didn’t understand what was happening, but he was not going to let his hope die. 

As he got closer to dying, he asked me to do the memorial service, and he said, I want you to do one thing. I want you to preach the Gospel at my service. I want you to preach Jesus. I want you to tell them how great He is. 

And the Sunday before he died, at our church service, I’m sitting in the front, and then all of a sudden, off to the side, I see Mike and his two sons. I see his two sons bringing him up to the front during praise and worship. And then one son got on one arm and lifted the arm up, and the other son got on the other arm and lifted the arm up, and there’s Mike, with the help of his two sons, worshiping his Lord and Savior. A man about ready to die, and all he could think about is, I just have to worship Him one more time. 

That’s a man that didn’t lose hope. That’s a man that saw the hope of his life begin to fade away, but he was not going to let the hope of Heaven disappear. 

If you’re going through it today, don’t lose hope. You have a Savior that loves you mightily, but He’s moving pieces around in our lives, and sometimes we don’t understand what’s going on. 

At that memorial service, I did exactly what Mike asked me to do: I preached Jesus. And several people came to know the Lord that day. I’ve done a lot of funerals in my day, I’ve never experienced a service like that where so many people came to know Jesus. As I stand here today, I’m here to tell you that if Mike were here, he would say, I am so thankful that those people came to know Jesus. And if I had to die for that to happen, it was worth it. 

Whatever you’re going through, you may say, Lord, You might be sacrificing my queen, sacrificing these pieces. I don’t get it. I don’t understand it, but trust in Him with all of your heart, and don’t lean on that understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths. 

We’re going to go into bread and cup right now. As we do that, if you’re really going through it, or you know some people that are going through it, I want you to take our bread and cup time today, a time of communion, let it be a time of the hope of life here on earth and a hope of eternal life in Heaven. And let it be a time where you can get recalibrated a little bit if you need to, and maybe represent some things before the Lord. 

I’m going to have the prayer team come up front as well. And if you need additional prayer for something that you’re going through, we want to allow our team to be able to pray for you today as well. So, let bread and cup be a special time of ministry for you this morning. We have tables in the front and the back. 

Let’s pray. Jesus, we thank You, and You are our hope. We put our trust in You. As the Apostle Paul said in Romans 8, I am convinced that my present sufferings are not worth to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us. 

Lord, as we enter into bread and cup, would You reveal Your glory to us today? Help us to put our sufferings aside. Help us to get our focus back on Heaven as we seek first Your Kingdom and Your righteousness and everything else will be taken care of after that. Thank You, Lord. In Jesus’ name, amen. Let’s have bread and cup.