Praise God For Your Living Hope

PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR LIVING HOPE (Outline)

March 22, 2020 - Lent 4 - 1 PETER 1:3-9

INTRO: Every day is another day that believers can praise God for his goodness. Yes, any day, every day no matter what we are facing. No matter what our worrisome world is promoting. We will want to praise God for his love. "May the peoples praise you, O God. May the peoples praise you—all of them. May the countries be glad and sing for joy, because you rule the peoples with fairness, and you guide the countries of the earth” (PSALM 67:2, 3). The Lord God controls all things. He rules all the people with fairness. “May the countries be glad and sing for joy”. PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR LIVING HOPE. God’s gift of living hope IS: I. Christ centered. II. Comfort filled. III. Completed goal.

I. OUR LIVING HOPE IS CHRIST CENTERED.

A. Verse 3. Believers were to bless the name of God: the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.

1. God’s loving mercy gave them a new birth. They were born again into a living hope.

2. Living hope came through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Jesus lives = living hope.

B. Verse 4. Living hope focused believers’ attention on their future. Inheritance was yet to come.

1. Not a normal inheritance. It was “undying, undefiled, and unfading”. Eternal. Perfect.

2. The inheritance was centered on Christ alone. Guaranteed: “kept in heaven for you.”

C. Living hope can only be based on that which is alive. The Christians’ living hope is exactly that. Our living hope focuses squarely on our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus lived. Died. Was buried. Rose again. Our living Hope is Christ. We might hope for different thing in our life. We hope the weather is nice. We hope that we do not get sick. But we may have some doubt when we hope for such things. We hope, but… Our living hope is unlike any other earthly hope we might have. “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul. It is sure and firm, and it goes behind the inner curtain, where Jesus entered ahead of us on our behalf…" (HEBREWS 6:19, 20a). Our living hope is God’s anchor for our soul. The key: Christ cares for our soul. Jesus’ blood paid the price. Temple curtain removed.

D. How do we come to know God’s free gift of living hope? We learn to appreciate our living hope in the words of the Bible. We begin to understand a little bit better God’s great love for us as we search the Scriptures. "Indeed, whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that, through patient endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we would have hope" (ROMANS 15:4).

PRAISE GOD FOR YOUR LIVING HOPE. It is Christ centered.

II. OUR LIVING HOPE IS COMFORT FILLED.

A. Verse 6. Peter encouraged the believers to rejoice in the midst of their trials. In midst of grief.

1. The early church faced great persecution. Lost homes, property, and even lives.

2. Rejoice?!? Yes. By faith they would, could, did focus on Christ: living Hope, Comfort.

B. Verse 7. Their faith was a faith of proven character. Their faith was far more valuable than gold.

1. Unlike gold their tested faith would endure. Trusted their living Hope. Found Comfort.

2. Once tested their faith resulted in “praise, glory, and honor”. Faith would not fail.

3. They would fully understand Christ’s gracious comfort at his appearing on the Last Day.

C. Rejoicing in trials not always easily done. We may even what question why the Lord says such a thing. When we focus on our living Hope we find the comfort that only our loving, heavenly Father can provide. Does provide. Whatever we face in this life we are not alone. Even or especially in our weakness the Lord God of Armies is our strength. Our Comfort. “Surely God is my salvation. I will trust him and will not be afraid, because Yahweh, the LORD, is my strength and song, and he has be-come my salvation" (ISAIAH 12:1). Our living Hope fills us with comfort. Strength. Salvation.

D. The longer we live in this world the more we understand that our world offers us little, in any, comfort at all. Knowing this drives us to the only real Comfort, our living Hope. Christ. Scripture teaches the same truths for our comfort in different places of the Bible. Here is the Apostle Paul sounding much like Peter. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our trouble, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the same comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God" (2 CORINTHIANS 1:3, 4). All of us have been comforted at one time or another in our lives. Our loving, heavenly Father comforts us with living hope. Being comforted we now can comfort others. Point them to Christ. Living Hope.