Imagine yourself in the Amazon Jungle.1 Deep in the jungle. Your friends convinced you to take a once-in-a-lifetime trip. You withdrew all your savings, called a travel agent, hooked up with an outfitter and a guide, and took off, seeking adventure. Two planes, an old pick up, a sputtering boat, and more mosquitoes that you can count, and you’re in the heart of the Amazon Jungle.
Your guide leads your group of six or seven thrill seekers into the thick vegetation. For the first two days, you walk along in awe as your guide points out the various kinds of plant and animal life. On the third day, you happen to be taking up the rear of the group. You stop to lace up your boots. As you bend over, your backpack tips over and spills its contents.
When you’re done gathering and repacking your gear, you look up and your group is nowhere in sight. You jog ahead a little to try to catch up, but then the trail just disappears right before your eyes. There is a hint of a trail to your right, so you try that, but no luck. Before you know it, you’re standing in the middle of the jungle with no trail and no people in sight, and you’re not even sure which way you came from. By this time you’ve resorted to screaming, but your group is long gone.
The foliage is so thick that you can’t even see the sky. The ground is slippery in the humid air, so you’ve been slipping and falling a lot. Thorny vines have been cutting itchy lines in your shins. You run desperately in a hundred different directions, but eventually you must face the bitter truth. You are lost. Hopelessly lost.
Drop you in a downtown and tell you to find a Starbucks – no problem. But here, it’s just too much. You just can’t handle the jungle. You sit down on a log, tired and depressed, burry your face in your hands and think, “It’s hopeless; I’ll never get out of here.”
“Can you freeze frame that emotion for a moment? Can you sense for just a second how it feels to be out of your element? Out of solutions? Out of ideas and energy? Can you imagine, for just a moment, how it feels to be out of hope?”2
“What would it take to restore your hope? What would you need to reenergize your journey?”3 Give me some audience participation. What would you need if you were lost in the jungle?
[Wait for replies.]
Often, life is a jungle. “Not a jungle of trees and beasts. … Our jungles are comprised of … failing health, broken hearts, and empty wallets. Our forests are framed with hospital walls and divorce courts. We don’t hear the screeching of birds or the roaring of lions, but we do hear the complaints of neighbors and the demands of bosses.”4 And tromping through the brush is exhausting.
“For some, even for many, hope is in short supply.”5 There seems to be no way out, no real answers, not when you’re stuck in the jungle.
I remember an old TV commercial. There are a couple of middle-aged guys sitting at the counter in a diner, and they’ve just finished big bowls of chili. Their stomachs kind of bulge, and you can’t really tell if their stomachs always stick out or if it’s just the gas. They rub their bellies and moan. Then, an off screen voice says, “How do you spell RELIEF?” A Rolaids package rolls into view, “R-O-L-A-I-D-S.” They were saying the essence of relief is Rolaids.
I’d like to play off that for a few minutes. How do you spell HOPE? What is the essence of your hope in the face of life’s problems?
Give me some audience feedback again. What are some ways that people in America, people around you, or people in pop culture spell HOPE? In what do they put their trust for the future? How do they propose to get out of their jungles?
POWER, CONTROL, MILITARY, HARD WORK, MONEY, EDUCATION, RECOGNITION
EXCITEMENT, SEX, ENTERTAINMENT
FAMILY, CHILDREN
SELF
“-----“ [] (null set; there is no hope)
I have seen some car ads that encourage us to put our hope in a car. I think one was a Volvo add. This sleek, silver car turns a corner in a plush, woodsy environment with a gently rolling stream in the background. Then a smooth baritone voice says, “Finally, a car that can save your soul.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t think any car, no matter how nice, can save my soul.
The problem is that none of the things we’ve talked about are trustworthy enough to be the locus of our hope. We cannot ultimately control our futures no matter how hard we try. Yet living for the present only satisfies for a little while, and then we feel empty again. Even our families and children can let us down, move away, or die.
As far as putting my hope in me or something within me, I don’t know about you, but I know that I’ve made enough goofball mistakes to know that I can’t put my hope in me. I know that sometime, when I least expect it, I’m going to blow it again.
Where does that leave us? Are we without final hope? Is it illogical to have any confidence that our deepest desires will be fulfilled? Are we stuck in the jungle of life, stuck to struggle our best against adverse elements?
What do we need in the jungle? What one thing could give us hope? A guide. Not just any guide. A guide who knows the jungle. A guide who knows the way out. A guide with the supplies to last us until we get out. A guide who will never leave us.
The Bible spells hope: JESUS. Jesus is the perfect guide for the jungles of life.
First of all, Jesus understands the jungle. One paraphrase of John 1:14 is that Jesus “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood” (Message). The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was like us in every way (Heb. 2:17). The very next verse says, “Since he himself has gone through suffering and temptation, he is able to help us when we are being tempted.” A little later, the same author says that Jesus “understands our weakness, for he faced all of the same temptations we do, yet he did not sin” (Heb. 4:15).
Jesus is no stranger to the problems of life. He went through the same kind of stuff we go through. I like the way a guy by the name of Josh Hatcher bluntly describes Jesus’ humanity:
“He pooped. He peed. He slept. He ate. He cried. He got angry. His actions pointed to the fact that he had spiritual and emotional needs. He needed friends, and was disappointed when they didn’t measure up … He needed food and rest. He wept when Lazarus died. He even questioned God. … Amazingly, He left perfection in heaven to be stinky and hungry and achy and lonely and even rejected…”6
Jesus is the perfect guide because he knows the jungle. He has walked this life. He knows the lay of the land. Whatever jungle you’re in or might ever be in, he’s been there.
The second reason Jesus is the perfect guide is that he knows how to get out of the jungle. The night before he died, Jesus said to his disciples, “Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (Jn. 16:33). At some point in our life, we’re going to end up in the jungle. There’s no way around that. The good news is that Jesus faced the jungle and defeated it. He is the King of the Jungle, the Master of Life. He knows how life is supposed to be lived.
“The story is told of a man on an African safari deep in the jungle. The guide before him had a machete and was whacking away at the tall weeds and thick underbrush. The traveler, wearied and hot, asked in frustration, ‘Where are we? Do you know where you are taking me? Where is the path?!’ The seasoned guide stopped and looked back and the man and replied, ‘I am the path.’
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the father except through me” (Jn. 14:6). Jesus knows the way because he is the way. He lived in our jungle and survived. He has led countless people through the jungle of life, and he can lead us, too. Our job is to follow him.
Third, Jesus has the provisions we need for the Journey. Sometimes it takes a while to get out of the jungle. I remember a TV show about these soldiers who got lost in the jungle in Vietnam. They were drinking out of a river, and they hadn’t eaten in days. One of them saw a large bug float by, and he picked it up and ate it. It was crunchy. People do crazy things to survive in the jungle.
“Freud said people are hungry for love. Jung said people are hungry for security. Adler said people are hungry for significance.” 7 When people are lost in the jungle, they will go to extremes to fulfill these hungers. The gutters of life offer all sorts of things that purportedly satisfy, but in reality those things only leave us feeling empty. Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever be hungry again” (Jn. 6:35). Jesus satisfies our deepest needs like nothing else can.
Finally, Jesus is the perfect guide because he will never leave us. Throughout the Old Testament, when one of God’s people doesn’t feel like he is up to the challenge of life, God’s reply is almost always, “I will be with you. You can make it because I will be with you wherever you go.” In Matthew’s account of Jesus’ life, the last thing Jesus said to his disciples was, “I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Mt. 28:20).
One of the surprising and frustrating things about the way God deals with us is that he doesn’t make the jungles go away. He says, “I will be with you wherever you are,” and that is enough. The jungle is still there. We still have some steep climbing and hard work to do, but we can make it if Jesus is our guide. We may turn our backs on him, but he is always right there to help us as soon as we turn back to him.
I want to take a few minutes to tell you part of my story and why I put my hope in Jesus. Not many people here know this, but I had a drug problem when I was growing up. It was pretty serious. My parents drug me to church on Sunday morning, drug me to church on Sunday night, drug me to church on Wednesday night. Church was not an option for us. We went every time the doors were open.
That wasn’t a problem for me at first, but as I grew up, I started to question things. I saw major inconsistencies in the Christians around me. I came to the conclusion that church was fake and that Christianity was just a psychological trick that people played on themselves. I rebelled. I went my own way and got into some things I shouldn’t have.
Then one day I was attending a series of church services, and everything came to a head. On the first night, I was not convinced. On the second night, the doubts disappeared. I knew deep within me that God was right and that I should follow Jesus, but I said to myself that I would put the decision off until the last night. Just as I thought that, the preacher said, “Some of you might be thinking, ‘I’ll just wait until the last night.’ Don’t do that.” With some encouragement from my friends, I decided that night to follow Jesus for the rest of my life.
My life has never been the same. That started a joy-filled adventure of getting to know God and experiencing life his way. The doubts weren’t gone for good, but I have experienced enough of God along the way to know that he is the best and safest place for my hope.
Jesus has been a faithful guide in all my life. I’ve been through some jungles: broken hearts, lost jobs, my parents’ near divorce, my own personal failures. But through it all God has been with me. I haven’t always been faithful to him, but he has always been faithful to me. He’s always been there to pick me up and set me back on the right track. Life has been a confusing adventure, and I am eternally grateful to have a guide like Jesus.
I don’t know where you are in life right now. You might be in the deepest jungle you’ve ever been in, or your life might be all green meadows and pretty flowers right now. Either way, we’re all going to face the jungle sometime, and we need to know where to turn.
Hope is spelled J-E-S-U-S. When we’re in a jungle what we need most is a guide, and Jesus is the perfect guide. He understands what we’re going through. He knows the way out. He has the resources to support and to sustain us, and, most important of all, he will never leave us.
One time the Apostle Paul was asked to explain Christianity to the council of philosophers in Athens, the ancient Harvard. When he was done, the Scripture tells us that the listeners had three different responses.
Some of them laughed and thought Paul was full of hot air. If that’s where you are, that’s OK. I was in the same place for a long time.
Some of them said, “We want to hear more about this later.” If that is where you are, we invite you to join us in May when we start the next Journey. Maybe you just have hope that there might be hope. We aren’t asking you to sign on any dotted lines. All we’re asking you to do is to investigate. You can ask questions. You can disagree. The Journey is about giving you a chance to explore, intelligently and without pressure, whether or not you believe this hope is true.
The last group of people who heard Paul that day believed right then. What Paul said connected with something deep within them, and they decided right then and there to become a follower of Jesus. I want to make room for anyone here to make that decision.8 If that’s where you are, you can say a simple prayer with me. You can just say it silently to yourself. “God, I accept this message of hope. I put my trust and hope in Jesus. I’m sorry for the wrong that I’ve done. Jesus, I invite you to be my guide from now on. Amen.”
1 The references to and images of the jungle throughout this talk are heavily dependant upon: Max Lucado, Experiencing the Heart of Jesus, (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2003), 82-6.
2 Ibid, 83.
3 Ibid, 84.
4 Ibid, 83.
5 Ibid.
6 “What We Forget about Jesus,” http://www.relevantmagazine.com/print.php?sid=137, July 19, 2003.
7 Nicki Gumble, Questions of Life, (Colorado Springs: Cook, 1996), 28.
8 This whole illustration about Paul talking in Athens is from Gumble, Questions of Life.
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