Intro:
1. Lucy and Linus are sitting in front of the TV set when she says to Linus, “Go get me a glass of water.” Linus looks surprised, “Why should I do anything for you? You never do anything for me!” Lucy responds, “On your 75th birthday, I will bake you a cake.”
Linus gets up and heads for the kitchen, “Life is more pleasant when you have something to look forward too.”
2. Every believer has something to look forward too, it is what we call hope.
3. Jesus Christ our Hope.
1 Timothy 1:1-2 (NKJV)
1 Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope,
2 To Timothy, a true son in the faith: Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.
I. First, his Commission.
A. His Gift.
Paul, an apostle – Wuest, “The word apostolos, from the verb apostello, “to send one off on a commission to do something as one’s personal representative with credentials furnished. Paul thought of himself as an official ambassador of Christ.”
All believers have at least one gift, and all are needed and important (1 Cor. 12:14-26).
An airplane pilot said, “A flight from Washington D.C. was uneventful until landing in Indianapolis. The plane was taxing to the terminal but stopped in the middle of the runway. Many of the passengers were beginning to fidget in their seats as the engines idled.” Then the pilot made an announcement that defused the tension:
“I flew this multimillion-dollar aircraft from Washington D.C. at night and found the airport on my first try. However, I have to wait until a guy with a couple of 99 cent flashlights shows me how to park it!”
The Body of Christ is gifted with both pilots and those with 99 cent flashlights type ministries and both are important and needed.
B. His God.
1. God the Father – here called Savior (I Tim. 2:3/Tit.1:3; 2:10; 3:4), the Lord Jesus is also called Savior (2 Tim.1:10/Tit.1:4; 2:13/Phil.3:20/Eph. 5:23).
2. God the Son. 1b, 2b
We have the same God!
II. Furthermore, his Confidence.
A. Jesus is our Peace (Eph. 2:14) because our Past sins have been dealt with.
H. G. Wells, “The time has come for me to reorganize my life, my peace – I cry out [for]. I cannot adjust my life to secure any fruitful peace. Here I am at sixty-five, and still seeking for peace…[it is a] hopeless dream.”
B. Jesus is our Life (Col. 3:4), the One who enables us in the Present, to deal with the stress of life.
Will Durant, “There’s nothing in life that is certain except defeat, death, and despair, a sleep from which seems there is no awakening. Faith and hope disappear. Doubt and despair are the order of my day. It is impossible to give life any meaning any longer.”
Two weeks later he died!
C. Jesus is our Hope, because of Him our Future is going to be glorious.
What is hope? “The believer’s hope cannot be defined as the world defines hope. The believer’s hope is entirely different from the worlds desires and wishes…Believers hope means to expect with confidence; to anticipate, to look and long for with surety, eagerly looking forward to what will happen.” [Practical Word Studies in the N.T.]
• Jesus is the hope, the certainty of all the glorious blessings of God (Col. 1:17)
• Jesus is the hope of our glorified bodies (Phil. 3:20-21)
• Jesus is the hope of attaining to Christlikeness (I Jn. 3:2)
It doesn’t matter if we lose our health, wealth, clout, job, or even our reputation – “our hope is built on nothing less then Jesus blood and righteousness; we dare not trust the sweetest frame but wholly lean on Jesus name!”
G. F. Watt has a famous painting entitled Hope. It pictures a poor woman against the world. Her eyes are bandaged so she cannot see. In her hand is a harp, but all the strings are broken except one.
Those broken strings represent her shattered expectations, her bitter disappointments. But that last string is the string of hope! She strikes it and a glorious melody rings forth.
In the midst of shattered dreams and bitter disappointments we still have the Lord Jesus Christ – our string of hope.
III. Thirdly, his Convert.
Timothy was one of Paul’s converts, one whom we would not normally give much hope. He seems to be backward, timid, and just plain fearful (I Cor. 16:10/2 Tim.1:7).
How does one like me and Timothy have hope? Because it was Jesus, not Timothy, who was his hope. Our Lord comes and overshadows our weakness with His strength.
Some years ago in a mental institution outside of Boston, a young girl known as “Little Annie” was locked in the dungeon. Doctors viewed her as a hopeless case, but then a nurse who was nearing retirement began eating her lunch outside of little Annie’s cage.
Little Annie totally ignored her presence but the nurse persisted to try and reach her. One day she left some brownies, and the next day they were gone. Every day she came, left brownies and tried to encourage little Anne.
About this same time the doctors noticed that this hopeless case was changing for the good. They moved her upstairs and finally she was allowed to return home. That little Annie was Anne Sullivan who taught and nurtured Helen Keller!
God is like that nurse, He takes the hopeless and fills them with Jesus, the champion of hope for the hopeless.
IV. Finally, his Consolation.
A. God’s Ability.
Grace – speaks of God’s enablement.
Wuest, “In pagan Greece, the word referred, among other things, to a favor done by one Greek to another, out of the spontaneous generosity of his heart, without hope of reward. Of course, this favor was always done to a friend not an enemy.
When the word is used in the N.T., it takes an infinite leap forward, and acquires an additional meaning, which it never had in pagan Greece, for this favor was done by God at the cross, not to one who loved Him, but to one who hated Him. Grace here is sanctifying grace, the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the yielded believer.”
What a wonderful hope we have! One based totally on Christ’s worth which enables us to live godly, to be a part of the “blessed hope” when He takes His church out of here, and looks forward to eternal bliss in the New Jerusalem.
Paul Krause was inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. On October 5th, 1995 his wife Pam was in an automobile accident. She was in a coma for 5 years, she also broke several bones. Paul was told by the doctors that there was no hope.
But he never wavered, he said, “When the doctors tell you that they do not know if she will live, that is not giving you any hope. But I never thought she would die. That is my belief in God, hoping that He would give me strength through all of it.”
Gods grace through Jesus Christ always gives us hope, if we are sick we know that by Gods grace we can be healed; and if it is His will that sickness leads to death, we know that absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, awaiting a resurrected body – and all by grace!
B. God’s Sympathy.
Mercy – God’s active sympathy and help for the miserable. No matter how bad it gets there is always hope because Jesus is merciful. Mercy like grace is always totally undeserved.
Spurgeon, “Have enough faith to believe that you need mercy. Mercy is not for those who think they have merited it. Such people seek justice not mercy. Only the guilty need and seek mercy. Believe that God delights in mercy…Believe also that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of mercy. His very existence is mercy to you. His every word means mercy. His life, His death, His intercession in heaven all mean mercy, mercy, mercy, nothing but mercy.”
C. God’s Tranquility.
Peace – this is the result of grace and mercy.
Eli Wiesel, “And yet – those are my two favorite words, applicable to every situation be it happy or bleak. The sun is rising, and yet, it will set. A night of anguish, and yet, it too will pass. The important thing is to shun resignation, to refuse to wallow in sterile fatalism.”
This is not just some positive thinking exercise, some false hope that we conjure up, but in the real risen Lord Jesus! God always has an “and yet” for the believer.
Paul confessed that while a prisoner in Rome, he was in reality a prisoner of Jesus Christ and thus a prisoner of hope. One who has constantly experienced God’s ability and sympathy and thus lived in tranquility.
Desmond Tutu won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, he said in an interview in Christianity Today:
“I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? There is no situation form which God cannot extract good. Evil, death, oppression, injustice – these can never again have the last word, despite all appearances to the contrary!”
Con:
1. Jesus Christ is our hope.
2. Ogilvie tells about visiting a successful Chicago business man named Ted. He noticed on his desk was a plaque with the words, “There’s hope for you!” Ted shared about a time when his business failed and he lost everything.
He began attending a Christian businessmen luncheon that met every Thursday. He said one man always told him, “Ted, there’s hope for you!” The day came when Ted trusted Christ as his Savior. Ted said:
“I was never a very hopeful person before meeting Christ. Its been nonstop hope ever since. I keep that plaque to remind me where I was and that I’m here today because of the Lord. Everybody needs to be told, “There’s hope for you.”
Johnny Palmer Jr.
www.strugglingthruscriptures.ning.com
www.blogtalkradio.com/strugglingthruscriptures
