One afternoon I was watching a Liverpool football game playing in the background and I could hear the crowd singing “You’ll Never Walk Alone.” I decided to look up the full lyrics to “You’ll Never Walk Alone” which go like this…
When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don’t be afraid of the dark
At the end of a storm
There’s a golden sky
And the sweet silver song of a lark
Walk on through the wind
Walk on through the rain
For your dreams be tossed and blown
Walk on, walk on
With hope in your heart
And you’ll never walk alone
You’ll never walk alone
Liverpool fans have had this song as their anthem since 1965, almost as long as the song has been around. It wasn’t until a terrible event happened in April of 1989 that the song was really embraced. There was a football match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forrest in the FA Cup and 766 people were injured and 96 tragically killed. There were too many Liverpool fans coming into the stadium seats and people were crowded which led to fans being trampled. This is when the song had its most impact in the football world as it was the theme song used from a worldly perspective that those fans will always be a part of Liverpool Football Club and memorialized.
There are 2 different ways you can view hope; worldly hope, where someone has a wish, feeling, or
desire that something will go their way if they maintain a good attitude or work really hard at something to achieve success. The other type of hope is a biblical hope, one only God can provide. Biblical hope is a confident belief based not on things experienced but on the word of God that the future He says will happen. Having biblical hope gives you peace, joy, and patience in the present day.
Romans 8:24-25 (ESV) says “Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
Romans 12:12 says “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.”
Those verses clearly describe biblical hope which means we need to put our complete trust and hope in God. We need to understand that God is in control of everything, nothing catches Him by surprise.
When we are going through that trial, when we catch an illness such as COVID, slip and fall and injure ourselves, or a close friend or family member of ours passes away, it’s all part of Gods will. We should be honest to God in our prayers. Guess what, He already knows everything including all of our faults and shortcomings. In many of David’s Psalms he writes about his suffering and how the enemy is trying to harm him and he brings it to God and David still knows and understands God is in control of his situation and life.
Psalm 147 is a Psalm full of describing Gods glory and in verse 11 it says “the Lord takes pleasure in
those who fear Him, in those whose who hope in his steadfast love”
Your friends and family are always watching you whether you realize it or not. When you face a trial, it is when your heart shows what kind of hope you have inside your heart. My pastor recently said, “Broken hearts are the hearts most receptive to Gods word” (David Totman).
How do I know if my hope is worldly or biblically? If you’ve never trusted Jesus as your savior, what do you have- you don’t have anything. If you’re willing to ask Jesus Christ to forgive you of your sins, he will wipe your slate clean. God does not change but He can change your eternal destiny.
Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in Hope”
Instead of the lyric “Walk on, walk on With hope in your heart And you’ll never walk alone You’ll never walk alone” what if we replaced it with “Walk on, walk on With Jesus in your heart And you’ll never walk alone You’ll never walk alone” because Jesus wants us to walk with us and us rely on His unfailing love for us.
I pray that everyone here is a believer in Jesus Christ but if you are not, I urge you to consider
surrendering your life to Christ who has already given us hope and who laid his perfect and sinless life down on the cross and rose again after 3 days for me and you.