Hopeless. That's such a sad word, but my guess is that many of you have either said it or thought it in the last couple of months, about someone or something in your life. It may be your marriage. You've tried everything to make it better or to save it. You've yelled. You've screamed. You've threatened. You've gone to counselors. But the harsh words, the biting, hard criticisms that come at you, the behavior, it doesn't stop. Nothing has changed. And you're on the verge of describing and labeling your marriage as hopeless. And for good reason. You have good reason to. Or it may be that you have a dream of being married, but things have happened, and that dream of being married and having a family just looks hopeless right now. Or your doctor has given you a diagnosis that everyone knows means the disease you have is hopeless. There's a verse in the Bible that's so relevant. It says, "They wept until they had no more tears." Has anybody done that here? I have. When my son committed suicide because he was mentally ill, tears became my only vocabulary. And I am sure that a lot of you know what that's like. You wept until you had no more tears. You feel like Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty is one of the best-known characters in English literature. You all know his story. "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again." Yes, he's cracked. He's broken. And no one can fix him, goes the story. And surely there is someone here today who feels that's your relationship. That's a child. That's your own life, because of addictions or whatever else. You're addicted. You feel cracked, and no one around you, as much as they've tried, has been able to fix you, to fix the brokenness in your life. But Jesus said something that I hope you'll cling to, because Jesus is like no other. And Jesus said this: "With man, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible." When you're tempted to label someone or something hopeless, remember what He said, because He could back it up. The first thing we must get straight is this, and if we don't get this straight, we really will never conquer this hopelessness: never make someone else responsible to encourage you. You are responsible for your own encouragement. I know that's hard when things are bleak, when things are broken. Still, you are responsible for your own encouragement. You can't delegate that to someone else. In fact, people who do try to delegate it to someone else, so often, as I observe them in counseling, block the encouragement someone's trying to give to them in other ways. Someone's trying to give them hope, and they just block it. They've got lots of reasons why it can't happen. You cannot delegate encouragement to someone else. And one of the big reasons is a lot of people are too busy to care. It's really true. You've had conversations that went for about two seconds, because they were busy with other things. People are just busy and distracted. There will be times when no one will encourage you, and you've got to encourage yourself. You know, we live in a culture today that says we're helpless. No, we're not. It's especially important to reject that and to say, "I can encourage myself." And I want to show you how. Jesus said, "With man, this is impossible. With God, all things are possible." Jesus was saying God is a bookie's nightmare. David did kill the giant Goliath, when no one thought that could be. Sarah was barren, and even though she was 90 years old, she did have the baby that God promised. God is a bookie's nightmare. And Jesus did rise from the dead. God is a bookie's nightmare. And when you know that, the word "impossible" can no longer be in your vocabulary. You can no longer label something hopeless, because to call something hopeless and put God in the same sentence is an oxymoron. It's self-contradictory, because God is almighty, or else you don't have a God. I grew up an atheist. I didn't believe God existed, and I didn't care if He did, because I didn't need Him. But at Stanford, I majored in philosophy. And one day the assignment was actually this: research and prove either that Jesus did rise from the dead or that He didn't. Prove it through the facts. I said, "That's going to be easy." So I began to research the historical facts around the resurrection. And the only honest and logical conclusion that I could come to was that He did rise from the dead. I did not want that to be true. I resisted the facts, because I was sure that if Jesus was real and God, He would ruin my fun. There were things that He would stop me from doing that I was doing in college. And He did, but He didn't ruin my fun. I was surprised by joy, just as C. S. Lewis said. But it didn't matter. The only intellectually honest conclusion that I could come to was that He did rise from the dead. Now, today it's common for me to meet people who are very proud of the fact that they don't believe in Jesus, or that He rose from the dead. And they're very loud about that. And I love to meet people like this, because I always ask them this: "What's your proof? What's your evidence that He did not rise from the dead?" Every time, they start stuttering, because they have not done the research. And it finally comes down to this: "Well, I don't believe it because it's just impossible." You see, that's a contradiction. If God is God, He's almighty, and nothing is impossible for God. And I had to come to the conclusion that Jesus did rise from the dead, because intellectually, that's the only honest thing I could do with the facts. Do you really believe? Do you really believe in the resurrection? Have you looked at the facts? Because it's a world-changing fact. If God exists, nothing is impossible for Him, or He is not God. Every day, life is a pop quiz on whether we believe God exists. When a Christian says that someone or something is hopeless, they've stopped believing in God. When somebody says, "No, our marriage is hopeless," "My son's hopeless," I always ask, "When did you stop believing God exists?" Because no one's hopeless with an almighty God. You see, we decide a priori, that is, before the facts are clear. We make decisions that are blocking the work of God in our life, without the facts. We just make those decisions. I always say, if you believe in God, then you can't use "God" and "hopeless" in the same sentence. Encourage yourself with what Jesus said: "With God, all things are possible." I recently read a true story about a man named Harry who faced a hopeless situation. He was diagnosed with cancer of the gallbladder. A surgeon was determined to take that gallbladder out, and he'd be healed. So he went into surgery. In the post-operative room, where he was recovering, the surgeon came in with bad news. He said, "I didn't take your gallbladder out. And the reason is the cancer has spread all through your body. Surgery can't heal you, and chemo can't save you. You need to be prepared that death is coming very soon to you." Harry went home, and he got sicker and sicker. He lost 50 pounds, because he was existing on ginger ale. And then a letter came from a relative, and the letter said, and I quote, "Harry, I'm praying for you. With God, all things are possible. Jesus. Matthew 19:26." End of story. Harry was not a Christian, but that promise grabbed him, and he went searching for an old, never-used Bible in his house. And when he found it, he looked up that verse, and it was from Jesus. And he continued to read about Jesus in the Gospels, how in one hopeless situation after another, He did what others thought was impossible. Amen. Suddenly Harry was hungry. He asked his wife to make him a sub sandwich. He had been existing up until then just on this ginger ale, as I said. But he got that sandwich, and he gulped it down, and he began to pray, over and over, Jesus's words: "With God, all things are possible." And he continued to eat and to believe that with God nothing was impossible. He began to pray. He got well. The doctor said, "This is impossible." But the facts were, Harry was cancer-free. [applause] He now tells anyone who needs encouragement that nothing with God is impossible. And he says, "I'm the evidence." Hope is a person. It's not what you know, it's who you know. Slick slogans do not heal you or do the impossible. But Jesus is behind His words. Nothing's hopeless, and Harry is cancer-free. And that's why Rembrandt, if you know anything about his paintings, uses a shaft of light for his emphasis. And if Jesus is in the picture, the light is always on Jesus, and the rest of the picture is dim. It's only Jesus who is lit up, because Rembrandt was a very deep Christian. He believed what I'm talking about today, and he shone the light upon Jesus, because hope is not what you know, it's who you know. Bruce Jennings cycled from Newport Beach to the East Coast. And of course, many others have done that. But Bruce only has one leg. He cycled all that way with one leg. Pete Sturovich runs marathons. Lots of people run marathons, but he has no hands or feet. Most would say they are handicapped people, and they have a right to park in that space with the sign that says it's only for them. But they say they're not handicapped. They say it's people with their attitudes who are handicapped, not us. They say many people are more handicapped by their attitudes than those of us with physical disabilities or handicaps. I know that is true. I know plenty of able-bodied people who are handicapped by their attitudes. They are blocking what's possible in their life because of their attitudes. They could have peace, but they will not forgive. They could be happy, but they will not let it go. They could enjoy life, but they are complaining and refuse to be thankful. They are blocking their happiness. Their attitude is their handicap. Oh, I wish you would believe that. Most of us don't. But I tell you, it is true. Handicapped by attitudes. To say something is hopeless and impossible is actually a form of atheism, because it denies that God is almighty. You really don't have a God if you think something is hopeless. Nothing is done by those who say it is hopeless. If you say it cannot be done, you won't do it. You won't even try. And that's what I see in marriage counseling. I'll get a couple who say they both love each other very deeply, but then we talk about ways their marriage could improve, and one or both won't do it. They just won't do it, and so their marriage doesn't get better. And why? Because of them. They block their own solution. You are not Humpty Dumpty. Your life may feel broken and cracked, but even though others cannot put you back together, God can. You may have fallen off the wall and cracked something in your life, but I'm telling you, you read the Gospels, and no one was hopeless in the hands of Jesus. Do you know Him? Not do you know about Him, but do you know Him? Talk to Him, walk with Him. Do you know Him? Secondly, you can never be sure what is hopeless, since life is full of surprises. The Chicago Cubs did win the World Series. The 49ers, maybe someday they'll surprise us and win the Super Bowl. It can happen. Snoop Dogg. He's on the edge of hopeless, but one day he may surprise us. Winston Churchill was a dunce in school. He was last in his class in English and in composition, but years later he won the Nobel Prize for the books he wrote, because they were so influential. Could anybody see that coming? No. It is amazing what we can do when we decide that with God all things are possible. It's amazing what doors that opens, instead of the negativity of "It's hopeless." This is Jim Abbott. He's a major league pitcher. He pitched for the Yankees. And what you should notice about him is he has no hand. He's really a one-armed pitcher. He would throw the ball and then move the glove from the stub of his arm to his good hand, to catch the throw back from the catcher. He pitched a no-hitter in 1969 for the Yankees. I mean, it's really something to make it into the major leagues with only one hand, but he pitched a no-hitter on top of that. There are no hopeless people or situations, only challenging ones. And that's what I want to convince you of. Someone in your life that you've labeled hopeless, change it to "They're challenging, but they're not hopeless." Yes, they're challenging, but they're not hopeless. If you still believe in God, doesn't someone come to mind about whom you need to pivot and start saying they're only challenging? You see, what I'm trying to convince you of is that we talk ourselves into discouragement. We must stop doing that. Really, I dare you to start monitoring your self-talk this week around people. And my bet is a lot of it's going to be discouraging self-talk. You're going to be focused upon the problems, not on the possibilities. You're talking yourself into discouragement. People do that all the time. Stephen Hawking was a 21-year-old student at Cambridge, and he was diagnosed with cancer, and he was told that he had less than two years to live. Well, he lived 55 more years, and he became a world-famous cosmologist. Henry Ford had this vision for a new kind of engine, a V8 engine. His engineers said to him, "The laws of physics make it impossible." Ford said, and I quote, "Build it anyway." And so they kept at it, and finally they made a breakthrough and produced the first V8. Hopeless only means you have not found the solution yet. That's all it means. You have not found the solution yet. Too many of us talk ourselves into discouragement and hopelessness. We talk about all the negatives and the problems, and leave God out. We make the negatives bigger than we make Jesus. I'm sure there's someone here who's about to give up on yourself, your marriage, an addiction you have. You think it's hopeless. You just haven't found the solution yet. Nothing is hopeless if you still believe in God. If you're being negative about all the problems, talking yourself into discouragement, that's stinking thinking. Your thinking stinks. Have you ever been around a person who's just so negative all the time? You didn't know those words, but they're stinking, and it affects them, doesn't it? People want to get away from stinking thinkers. It blocks God working in your life, because stinking thinking is no faith. And without faith, there are no miracles. Amen. That's why you've got to stop talking yourself into discouragement. It's no faith. God's best miracles are how He changes people. Paul was a murderer, but Jesus changed him into a grace-preaching missionary. Peter betrayed Jesus three times, but Jesus turned him into the rock of the church. Chuck Colson was Nixon's hatchet man, who, it was said, would betray his own mother. But Jesus got hold of him and turned him into a person who had the biggest impact of the century upon prisoners and the prison industry. C. S. Lewis asks, "If Christianity is true, why aren't Christians always nicer than other people?" Oh, good question. Why aren't Christians nicer than other people? He answered that if Jesus comes into a life, that person will radically change. Or Jesus is not in their life. He said, and I quote, "If a person doesn't change, we must suspect their conversion was imaginary." And that's true. If Jesus comes into a life, that person will change. And not just change 20 years ago, but be continually changing for the better. What this means is a lot of people think they're Christians, and they're not. They think they're Christians because they believe in Jesus. But the Bible says even the devil believes in Jesus. Of course he does. They think they're a Christian because they go to church and they are in worship. But that's like saying, "I sleep in the garage overnight, and I'm a car." Going to church does not make you a Christian. It's like a person who wears a 49ers shirt and says, "I'm a 49ers pro football player." No, you're not. You're only a Christian if Christ is in your life and He's changing you. If you're not conquering things in your life, you've got to suspect you're not connected to Jesus anymore. Are you connected to Jesus? I'm serious. Do you know Him? Are you connected? Are you changing? Third, make up your mind to do whatever it takes. You've got to do that. You've got to make up your mind: "I'm going to do whatever it takes." That's why a lot of counseling for marriages does not help, because they won't make up their mind to do whatever it takes. "Yes, I'm going to let that go. I'm going to forgive the louse. He cheated on me, but I'm going to forgive him." "Yes, it takes a lot of patience, because she's always controlling. She's always criticizing me." Yes, you've got to be willing to do what it takes for something to get better. And often we're the ones blocking improvement. Everything you want depends upon determination. Giving up does not get you what you want. Giving up does not get you what you want. You have to be determined to do whatever it takes. Like this lion chasing a giraffe on stilts. This giraffe is his dinner, but he can't jump up there to get its neck. But he's determined. He got himself a pair of stilts, and he's chasing his dinner down tonight. I want to show you a picture of what real determination is. That's a toddler learning to walk. You know, have you thought about this? A toddler sees brothers and sisters walking, and a dream forms: "I want to walk like them." Right? Let me show you the process of a toddler learning to walk. Stand up, fall down, get back up. Stand up, fall down, get back up. That's how a toddler learns to walk. [applause] And you don't find 30-year-old people still crawling, because at some point in their life they were determined to do it. And that's where you are, in some dream you have, in some relationship you have. Yes, you've fallen down. Stand up and do it again. That's what you need to do. Winston Churchill said, "I have succeeded because I have refused to use available excuses to give up." You've got to refuse the excuses and get up. Do whatever it takes. Encourage yourself by remembering that failure does not have to be the end of a story. Be willing to do whatever it takes to make your dream come true, to make your marriage better, to get a better job, whatever else you want. Encourage yourself, because probably no one else will. Pray with me. Lord, I pray this message is life-changing. May the pictures and the videos stick with us. And before we leave this morning, may we make promises to ourselves that come out of this message. Lord, I pray it in Your name, Jesus. Amen.