Keeping The Hope Of Our Calling Alive

Introduction:

God created man with a privileged status of sharing his image and likeness and to have authority over other creatures as well as having fellowship with Him. However, as a result of the fall of man, the privileges and blessings /authority were exchanged for curses and separation from Him. Consequently man has been laboring under the yoke and bondage to sin, devil, and separation from Him as well as denial of the much needed blessings.

Because of his love and compassion God then decided to change this situation by calling as many as will hear, believe and obey Him out of the bondage back to the original status as it were at creation. Today we shall be looking at what this call is; the hope that we have in the call and how to keep the hope alive.

1. What is the call?

LK 5:31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

God sent Jesus Christ to come and call you and me to:

Come out of the world

That is alienated from Him,

EPH 4:18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.

ISA 59:2 But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.

That is filled with sins and controlled by the devil,

1JN 5:19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one.

GAL 5:1 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

That is waiting for His wrath,

JN 3:36 Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.",

COL 3:6 Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. 7 You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. 8 But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

To be holy and blameless,

2CO 6:17 "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing,

and I will receive you."

1PE 1:15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

And put on the nature of God afresh

1JN 3: 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.

And become sons and daughters of God

JN 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—

i. Receive a new nature,

ii. Receive a new status

iii. Receive a new inheritance

2. What hope does the call bring?

Hope of our past sins being washed away or of our past did being forgotten;

ISA 1:18 "Come now, let us reason together,"

says the LORD.

"Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool.

HEB 8:12 For I will forgive their wickedness

and will remember their sins no more."

2CO 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18:

Hope for our today

JN 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

Hope of Eternity

JN 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Continuous fellowship with the Lord for ever

JN 14:2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. Of being with Jesus Christ for ever.