Prisoners of Hope 1: Zechariah 1

The expression "Prisoners of hope" comes out of the book of Zechariah. It means you can't escape hope. Usually imprisonment is a negative thing, but Zechariah talks about being prisoners of hope--no matter how trying times might be, to come back to hope again and again. There may be things we've waited for for a long time. The outlook gets a little depressing. How do you keep looking ahead with hope? Sometimes it's easier to not expect good things because then you won't be disappointed. But in times like that, we lock ourselves in a prison of hope and just choose to hope, because we know that God has good things in store for us, and we know that God is good. Today we start a series called Prisoners of Hope, walking through the book of Zechariah. Over the years we have looked a number of times at purchasing a place of worship of our own, only to have it fall apart. Now that we are in this place again, it's easy to be negative and lose hope. It's taken us 30 years to raise just over a million dollars. And if we put an offer in, we have 45 days to raise 3.5 million. So either God's in it, or he's not, cause it's definitely beyond us. We can either be a prisoner of despair or a prisoner of hope. I vote for hope. What draws me to Zechariah is how much he talks about the centrality of God's house where his people gather to worship. And I want to draw us into that.Extra reading: Romans 12:9-13Preacher: Bill Dyck