The Stairway of Despair

Through Jesus' healing of a man with leprosy, the situation in which Samuel could no longer pray for King Saul, and the history of Jeremiah crying out amid the people's rebellion, this passage deals with what 'despair' means for the maturing of faith. People can endure when there is hope, but holding on to hope for those who betray endless love and choose the world ultimately leaves one with nothing but emptiness. God knows that the nature of the world does not change, yet he revealed his wrath through judgment, and believers, too, should look to God's sovereignty rather than to people changing.

The sermon looks squarely at the deep hurt and frustration believers feel when they devote themselves to saving a soul and the other person does not change. It emphasizes that this despair is a feeling experienced only by those who have taken on the responsibility and made the effort, and that the beginning of true faith is not avoiding it or resenting it but acknowledging that reality. Believers must rely on the leading of the Holy Spirit rather than placing their hope in people, and only when they realize that the world is a place already under judgment can they stand on an unshakable rock. Despair becomes a step that keeps us from setting our hearts any longer on the empty world and on people, and leads us to depend wholly on Christ, our only hope.

The sermon asks whether believers have ever despaired because of people and circumstances that do not change, and whether they are still carrying that pain. Knowing that this despair can be left behind only by growing strong through the power of the Holy Spirit, believers are led to consider how they can set their faith right.