Jesus Christ Our Hope

Title: Jesus Christ…Our Hope

Text:

NAS 1 Timothy 1:1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ Jesus, who is our hope;

Col 1: 27 to whom God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Introduction

This morning my message is entitled Jesus Christ our hope. The Christian Hope is different from the world’s hope. The world hope is without certainty for they do not know whether they hope for will be fulfilled.

The Christian hope with certainty because the object of our hope is Jesus Christ himself. Through his life, death and resurrection he has proven beyond the shadow of doubt that whatever he promise will one day come to pass.

This morning the title of my message is Jesus Christ our hope and I would like to show you three aspects of our hope in Jesus Christ.

1. Jesus Christ the only hope of Salvation for sinners.

Following his release from his first imprisonment, Paul visited some of the churches which he had ministered before. During the journey, he left his disciple Timothy in Ephesus to deal with some problems in the church while he departed for Macedonia. Apparently in Ephesus, false teachings had crept into the Ephesian Church and are robbing the believers of their hope of salvation. These false teachers were teaching that observance of the laws is a necessary means of salvation. (1Tim 1:7)

It is with this in mind that Paul wrote to his disciple Timothy. Stamping the letter with his apostolic authority in 1Tim Chapter 1:1, saying that “Christ Jesus is our Hope” In doing so Paul was refuting the false teachers that Christ alone is the hope of salvation.

Why is Christ the only hope of Salvation?

a. The Law while it is good, has no power to save (1Tim 1:6-11)

Paul pointed that the Law while it is good has no power to save sinners. The purpose of the law is to show sinners their sins and thus point to the need of a saviour.

Man is incapable of obeying the laws of God because man was already tainted with sin. The law shows us that we are all sinners in need of a saviour.

Similarly Religion has no power to save sinners from hell. Most religion teaches believers to adhere to certain moral conducts. Now these conducts are good. However obeying moral laws will never be able to save sinners because sinful man is already given the death penalty and is on the way to hell.

b. The sole purpose of Christ coming into the world was to save sinners. (1Tim 1:15)

Jesus came into the world with one mission in his mind and that is to save sinners destined fro hell. And Jesus Christ our only savior and the hope of sinners fulfilled this mission through his sacrificial death and resurrection.

There is truly no other savior for Christ is the only one who paid for the sins of mankind through his death, and He defeated the power of death at his resurrection.

c. If Christ can save a sinner like Paul, he could save anyone

Paul considered himself as the worst of all sinners. He said in 1Tim 1:15, that he was the foremost of all sinners. Paul was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor of the church. He witnessed the stoning of Stephen. Such was his reputation that the church in the beginning did not believe that Paul was truly converted.

Paul was not only converted, he became one of the greatest apostles and wrote a large part of the New Testament. It is an awesome testimony that Jesus Christ is indeed the hope of salvation.

If indeed Christ is the only Hope of sinners destined for judgment and hell, what should our response be?

We as believers are God’s messenger of Hope. Would you pass by a dying man and not do anything about it? I am sure you will be activated to save the person from death.

How many times have we passed by people in need of the hope Christ can offer and we pass them by? Some of these people are people whom we see and talk to everyday and yet our eyes were not open to their hopelessness. Aren’t we just as guilty as the Priest and the Levite in the parable of the Good Samaritan? We can memorize the great commission by heart. We say amen to the preacher preaching about the need to evangelize. But once we step out from the church service, the plight of the hopeless is the least of our concern.

Ask yourself:

1. Is your heart concern over the salvation of a family member, a colleague, a neighbor or a friend?