The Door of Hope

Pastor Travis Johnson kicks off A Place Called Hope: God plants a Door of Hope right in your Valley of Achor (trouble). Hosea 2:15 – “There I will give her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope.”

From Gomer’s unfaithfulness to Achan’s hidden sin, God doesn’t remove the valley—He redeems it.

Landmark 1: Place of Loss (name your Achor)

Landmark 2: Door of Hope (Jesus on the cross)

Landmark 3: Place of Celebration (worship before the miracle)

Stop camping in victimhood. Name it. Trust God. Walk through. Worship loud. Hope isn’t escape—it’s entrance.

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Sermon Transcript

God has opened a door of hope for you.

Hey, what did pastor talk to you about? He said that God has opened a door of hope for me.

One of the last things human beings hold onto before they lose their breath is hope. And when you have lost hope, there's no amount of money, there's no amount of time, there's no amount of people, there are no amount of doctors that can fix your business.

I don't know what situation you've come into this place in today, but I want you to know that God has opened a door of hope just for you.

I would go even further, and in fact, let me just give you the punchline of this whole message. God has opened a door of hope in your valley of trouble.

Right in the middle of your desert, right in the middle of your difficulty, right in the middle of your sickness, right in the middle of your challenge, God has made a way where there was no way.

Now this message is in the context of the book of Hosea.

I think Hosea had the roughest job of any prophet. He's one of the minor prophets.

While Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet, Hosea, he was called to demonstrate God's love for humanity and God's love for the church.

How many of you know that God works to reconcile his creation back to him through Jesus Christ?

How many of you know Jesus Christ is faithful? And we struggle with faithfulness.

Hosea was called by God to marry a woman by the name of Gomer. She was a prostitute.

And Hosea was a prophet.

So Pastor Hosea is married to the shadiest girl in town. You go down and fill in the blanks. Whatever you wanna put in your notes, whatever you wanna call her, I want you to go ahead and do that. I don't care. Write whatever you wanna write in the notes. If it's too spicy, we will have the altar for you afterwards. But I'm telling you, whatever you are thinking about, Gomer is accurate.

But I also need you to know it is also a picture of you and me.

Because while God called Hosea to marry Gomer and Gomer would go off and be unfaithful, Hosea would continuously go out to find her in her place of difficulty and bring her in to reconcile her back to us. See, this is the amazing thing about the church and what we've been called to is that we are not the heroes of this story. Jesus is the hero of the story. And we are the sheep that left the 99 that he went to find.

So this is Hosea and Gomer. Hosea, chapter two and verse 15, the Bible says, "There I will give her back her vineyards."

"And make the valley of Achor a door of hope. There she shall respond as in the days of her youth."

As in the days she came up out of Egypt. So basically we're talking about an Israel that had been released from slavery in Egypt. God did all the miraculous to reconcile them out. They were so excited. And of course they went into so many difficulties. And so many times they went back on God wandering in the wilderness. When the Egyptians come out, they said we would have been better in bondage time after time after time. God was faithful to them. And time after time after time, they had the worst response.

And I don't know about you, but even as I preach this right now, I have this sense of deep gratitude for all of times in my entitlement, all of the times in my lack of perspective, not really understanding all that God has done for me and looking at my situation and go, "God, why is this happening? Why did it have to go like this? I deserve better." Now I'm saying this, but I'm trying to put myself in your shoes too. Is there anyone that's ever felt like that before?

Yet if we step back, if we step back, how in the world do we even have a right to even question the goodness of God? Let's just testify really quickly just to remember while we're in the presence of the Lord, has our good and faithful God been good and faithful to us? Is there anybody here in the house that says, "Pastor, you're talking to me."

So let's look at this verse. There, I will give back her vineyards. There, I will restore the things that I had given her.

Notice the first word at the beginning. Can you see it? The word is there. There, it's a location.

Everything in this passage hinges on location. See, God is not promising a vague wish.

There are plenty of people that speak in vague, ambiguous language.

Even, you know, prophets that I have seen where they make these vague, broad declarations that creates this big field that anything can happen in that field and then they show up and say, "See, there, I told you it was gonna happen." No, this is not what the Lord has done. The Lord says, "There, I will bring a blessing." There, in that place, I will restore her vineyards in this place, in the Valley of Achor.

It's a location named, a specific place where everything changes. And I want you to understand today that God, through his church, has created a place called Hope where God can change absolutely everything. I just have to say to somebody that's here in the house today, maybe you've tried enough your way. How about trying God's way just one time

today I want you to see this place of hope and in doing so, I wanna give you three landmarks.

Three landmarks on God's map of restoration.

And by the end of this message, my prayer is that you fully step through this door marked hope. Is there anybody in the house today that could use a good dose of hope today? Amen. Amen.

Three Landmarks on God's Map of Restoration

1. The Place of Loss

The place of loss.

Now, in this culture, Christians, culture, cultural movements, they identify the landmark of loss. And this is good. It's good.

But the problem with the culture and a lot of things that are happening right now is we stay at the landmark in the place of loss.

That forever we are identified by our place of loss.

The church is for victims. The church is for people who have experienced loss. But you do what you wanna do. I do not wanna camp out at the place of loss. I want to come to Christ because of loss. And in this place where God brings redemption, I wanna step through the door of hope. You know what, I wanna just let it go. I wanna say this stuff I've been carrying around, I don't wanna carry it around anymore. I don't wanna be identified by it. That's not who I am.

Now, this place of loss is the Valley of Achor in this passage.

What the name means literally, Achor is trouble, in the Valley of Trouble.

Go to Joshua 7, we see that the valley earned its name when Achan stole devoted things. Remember this, remember A.I., the city A.I., shortly after Israel comes into the Promised Land, and things that had been earmarked by God for certain things were treated with contempt. It was a valley of trouble.

Remember it was hiding under his tent?

He was, let me tell you, you can't hide from God. Adam and Eve showed us, there is no fig leaf that you can hide behind when it comes to God. You may fool your friends, and you may fool the church, and you may fool your social media audience, but you can never fool God.

The Valley of Achor gives us its name, because Achan stole devoted things, and Israel suffered defeat in A.I. because of this disobedience. 36 men died, the nation trembled, and have you noticed that trouble has a way of branding a place? Have you noticed that, or even branding a person?

I'll tell you sometimes. Sometimes somebody will walk up to you and say, "Oh, here comes trouble." Have you ever heard of that? Elijah did too? Elijah.

Oh, troublemaker of Israel. They're trying to brand Elijah. Now Elijah's one bad mamma-jamma. Now he also trembled, but that was a prophet, and he sidestepped the little insult by Ahab, and he was like, "No, that's you who perverts the word of God." But I'll tell you what, the enemy wants to stigmatize you, wants to brand you, wants to freeze you, wants to isolate you, wants to identify you with something that you've done in your past.

Listen to me really good. For those of you who are in Christ Jesus, you are not who you used to be. You are somebody else in Jesus. You are not who you used to be, but also you are not who you're going to be. But in order to be who God has called you to, you have to move on from the valley of trouble and walk through the door of hope.

What is your personal Achor, your personal trouble? A hospital room where a diagnosis came, a classroom where some teacher or some bully or maybe a parent who stigmatized you and told you you would never be, you would not amount to anything, that you are a mistake, that you're rough, whatever it is.

Is it a courtroom where the gavel fell?

Is it a grave where you whispered it's over?

Is it a mistake that you've made in your past that you can't let go of in every single night that you lay down to go to sleep? You're reminded of Achor, you're reminded of your trouble?

2. The Place of Transformation

But at the door of hope, God created it through his son, Jesus Christ.

Who does the making? The Bible says, this is not me just surmising this, but the Bible says, I will make the valley of Achor. I, not self-help, not time. Time doesn't heal, I promise. Time does not heal.

Time will not heal a broken bone. The bone has to be reset.

Experience is not the best teacher. Evaluated experience is the best teacher. Somebody has to do something with the time, with the pain, with the difficulty. And Jesus says, it's me. He says, I will make the valley of Achor a door of hope.

God does the impossible construction project. Isaiah chapter 61 and verse three, the Bible lets us know that we get beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning.

It's the same architect. And this architect puts hinges on the door of hope.

And those hinges are the cross.

Everything moves on what Christ did on that cross.

3. The Place of Celebration

The Bible says in that passage, there she shall respond. She shall respond. We will respond.

When God opens a door in the valley of trouble, we should respond not on the other side of the door, but as we walk through the door of hope.

And I know God does miracles, but you know what? I don't think we're supposed to wait until our miracle happens. I think we should work until our miracle happens. I think that we should worship until our miracle happens. This is how we fight our battles. We don't sit back like Peter walking in to Jesus trial, following at a distance, sitting down to see what would happen. We don't stand and wait to see if God's going to move. We know that our God who never fails will move. And however it works out, we will trust Him and we will worship during the waiting. Amen. Is there anybody in the house that can worship during the waiting?

Listen to these things that happen. Vineyards restored. You know, grapes don't grow overnight.

God is handing back fruitfulness, not just survival, but overflow. God's gonna restore your ability to prosper, not just a handout, but for you to be able to thrive, even in the Valley of Achor. And a youthful song returns. The Bible says, "As in the days of her youth, that we would have joy. There should be no disappointment that overwhelms us in the Valley of despair and the Valley of trouble, because the Lord is with us.

"Yea, though I walk through the Valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because you are with me." Brothers and sisters, friends, those of you that don't know Christ, listen today. No matter what it is that you're going through, there is a God in heaven that loves you and He will meet your need if you will allow Him to meet your need. And He will do it as in the days of your youth. Remember the first time that you sensed God's presence, the wonder, the worship, the willingness? Is that feeling, is that sense coming back to you a little louder, stronger, seasoned by grace?

I want to let you know that Egypt is behind you. Your bondage is behind you. The voice of the Savior, the deliverer is calling. And all we have to do is step through the door.

Action Items to Step Through the Door

I want to bring this to a close with some action items because it's not enough for you just to know the truth. Right, faith without works is dead. You could be inspired to know that God's word is true, but what will we do with this truth?

Here's how we have to step through the door.

1. Name your Achor. Name your place of trouble, name it. Name it, call it out, identify it, recognize it. I'm not asking you. Now here's some people say, well don't confess that. No, you name it, name it, point to it. Says this is the place. You say this is the place, this is my Achor, this is my trouble.
   

   I remember one time I literally, I walked in, somebody said, how are you doing? I said, man I've walked so much it feels like my feet are gonna fall off. They said, don't confess that. Like my feet are not gonna fall off. That was a saying, just a saying.
   

   I wasn't confessing feet to fall off.
   

   How are you doing today? Blessed and highly favored, I believe that. I confess that. I don't like down in the mouth talk. I think so much of it is a self fulfilling prophecy. Why would we constantly speak negativity? Right, but I also don't believe.
   

   I don't believe that, like if you have a sickness, unless God has given you a conviction, now I'm not gonna condemn you for anything, but unless God has given you a conviction about a thing, if you have a sickness, the Bible says, if any are among you are sick, let them come to the elders of the church. So if you can't name it, you can't come. If you can't name it, you can't go before the elders.

   Name your place of trouble. God, this is my place of trouble. I identify it. I have these self repeating behaviors in my life. My mind is burdened. I'm depressed. I'm sick in my body. I lost someone I love. I feel like I don't have anything else to offer. I'm wondering what my purpose is. I feel lost, name it.
   

2. Turn it into a petition. Go to God with it and say this right here, I'm petitioning you for health and healing and deliverance. This, name it. You're gonna call on the Lord in just a minute. When you do, you call it out. Have you been battling with depression? Call it out, name it.
   

   I will never forget, and in the sixth grade, this joker bullied me all the time. And it was just running over me. I was like, I'm gonna handle business this next week. I named it. I called it out. I said, what is it gonna do? He messed with me. I jacked that joker up and then he gave me the beating of a lifetime.
   

   He never messed with me again. It was worth the trouble. It was worth the fight. How much more are you gonna take because you don't wanna go through the disappointment of naming what it is. If you don't put the X on the map, you will never get to where you're gonna go. Try it on Siri. Get directions to a place and turn off your location data. It won't do it. Name it and let God do the work. You can write it down. Maybe put it in your Bible. Bring it to the altar.
   

3. Trust God. Stop trying to redecorate the valley. Stop getting interior decorators to sprux up your valley of Achor. Get out of there. Dump that place.
   

   If you have to live in the doorway, do whatever you have to do to get out of that valley. But just say, I'm not gonna live in that space anymore. I'm not gonna talk about myself like that anymore. Stop apologizing for how you talk. Stop apologizing for your insecurities.
   

   Stop talking about how much money or how little money you have and begin to walk as if God has called you through the door.
   

   And now I'm gonna tell you a psychological reason why you need to stop doing that. Because rats even get off of sinking ships. So if you're talking down about who God is, lifting up, nobody wants any part of that.
   

   But if God has given you hope, however you feel, begin to walk like it. Stand up just a little bit straight or pray just a little bit louder. When you do devotions with your family, stop acting insecure around your kids and around your wife or around your husband. Just do what God has called you to do. When you go out to eat, don't be ashamed of who you are. When you do business, don't be ashamed of who you are. Followers of Christ, God has a great plan in store for us.
   

   Cooperate with God's plan. Name your Achor, trust God, and then finally worship the open door. Start singing in advance.
   

   Praise is the password that opens the gate. Praise as if God has already done it.