We live in a world that desperately needs some hope:
• Hurricanes and earthquakes
• Threat of terrorist attacks
• Rising energy prices that threaten our economy and our own personal finances
• Increasing crime
• Bird flu pandemic
In a world like that people look for hope in all kinds of places:
• Powerball jackpot
• Other people
• Horoscopes and other occult practices
• Government/police
• Medicine/Vaccines
• Two guys that went hunting and got lost
• Little league baseball player
In the first century, there was a rugged, strong-willed, passionate fisherman who needed some hope in his life. He was constantly sticking his foot in his mouth, acting before thinking and making promises that he couldn’t keep. But Peter not only found hope for his own life, he also became the apostle of hope and he wrote a letter that we still have today to give us hope in a world that surely needs some. For the next 5 weeks or so, we’re going to be taking a look at several parts of that letter to see if we can’t learn how to find hope for our lives.
We’ll be looking at how to have hope…
• When I’m tempted
• For my home
• When life’s unfair
• When all hope seems to be lost
We need to define hope:
“wishful thinking” – I hope the Cubs win the World Series
Strong’s – “anticipate with pleasure”
Vine’s – “favorable and confident expectation of good”
We first need to build a good foundation for our hope.
Illustration: Building a house
Read 1 Peter 1:1-9
HOW TO BUILD A SOLID FOUNDATION FOR MY HOPE
1. Rejoice in God’s will
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead…
1 Peter 1:1-3 (NIV)
As Peter begins to describe this living hope that God has given to each one of us, he makes it so clear that the hope we have is entirely a product of God’s plan, his will, for our lives. We are His elect; He has chosen us; He has given us the new birth into a living hope. There is not even a hint here that we have done anything to deserve this living hope. God has chosen to give it to us simply because it is His choice, His will, for our lives.
Paul describes this principle in a very similar way.
But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.
2 Thessalonians 2:13-14 (NIV)
We have been:
• Chosen by the Father
o As far as the Father is concerned, I was saved when He chose me in Christ before the foundation of the world.
• Purchased by the Son
o As far as the Son is concerned, I was saved when He died for me on the cross.
• Set apart by the Spirit
o As far as the Spirit is concerned, I was saved when I heard the Gospel, was convicted of my sin and accepted Jesus Christ into my life a Lord and Savior.
When we recognize just what God has done for us, when we consider His perfect plan for our lives where he not only has chosen us, but also provided the means for us to have an intimate, personal relationship with Him, how can we respond with anything but rejoicing?
In this you greatly rejoice…
1 Peter 1:6 (NIV)
As we sang about this morning, God has made a great change in me – a change that lays the first building blocks for a strong foundation of hope in my life. And I need to rejoice in that. And that leads directly to the second building block for my foundation of hope:
2. Rely on God’s work
Read vv. 3-9 again – focus on:
…through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead… (v. 3)
Peter makes it clear that my hope rests totally and completely on the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. That is the work that God has already completed on my behalf.
I don’t earn it – Ephesians 2:8, 9
I don’t deserve it – Romans 5:8
So the question that arises is this: “If God already did the work that builds the foundation for our hope, why doesn’t everybody have that hope?” Because it’s pretty obvious that we live in a world full of people without hope. Let’s read on…
…through faith… (v.5)
…your faith… (v.7)
… your faith… (v.9)
Peter makes it very clear that even though God has provided the possibility of hope for every person, only those who grasp onto that gift through faith actually receive it. What is this faith that Peter writes about here? He sums it up in v.8:
Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy…
1 Peter 1:8 (NIV)
• Though I have not seen Jesus, I love Him
Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.
John 14:21 (NIV)
That’s Lordship
• Though I do not see Him now, I believe in Him.
That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.
Romans 10:9, 10 (NIV)
That’s Salvation
Say the welcoming word to God – “Jesus is my Master” – embracing, body and soul, God’s work of doing in us what he did in raising Jesus from the dead. That’s it. You’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That’s salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: “God has set everything right between him and me!”
Romans 10:9, 10 (Message)
The writer of Hebrews confirms the importance of faith in establishing a firm foundation for our hope:
Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1 (NASB)
Assurance = foundation
Conviction = proof
Now faith [relying completely on God’s work through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead] is the foundation of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen.
Where do we get that proof of things not seen? That leads us to the third principle.
First, I rejoice in God’s will.
Second, I rely on God’s work.
Third:
3. Remain in God’s Word
That’s where I get the proof of things not seen.
We’ve all heard the term “blind faith”. But when it comes to our faith in God, it is hardly blind. Peter addresses that fact a little later on in Chapter 1:
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever." And this is the word that was preached to you.
1 Peter 1:23-25 (NIV)
Remember back in v. 3, Peter wrote about how we have been born into a living hope. And here he tells us that the third building block for our foundation of hope, after rejoicing in God’s will and relying on God’s work, is that we must remain in God’s Word. The starting point for our faith in God is His Word.
God’s Word is where I find the “proof of things not seen.” It is in God’s Word that I discover that God had a plan for my life from the beginning of time. It is in God’s Word that I learn that God has chosen me and that He has provided a way for me to have an intimate, personal relationship with Him through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in God’s Word that I read about the sinless life of Jesus and about His death on the cross and His resurrection. And so my faith is certainly not blind. It is based on the written word of God that is God-breathed and which was written down by godly men and miraculously passed on to us today even though it was written thousands of years ago.
Peter uses two words to describe the Word of God in our lives:
• Living
For the word of God is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are.
Hebrews 4:12 (NLT)
The Bible is the only book ever written that could be described as “living”. Those very same words that Peter wrote nearly 2,000 years ago, which lived in the lives of the people who read his letter back then, also live in our lives and speak to us today.
Only a living word is capable of giving us a living hope. I’m amazed at just how many so called “self-help” books are available today. You can go down to Barnes and noble and find a huge section of them. So there must be a great demand for them. I’m convinced that the number one reason people are buying that kind of books is that they are looking for hope in their lives: hope for their marriages and families, hope for freedom from their addictions, hope for their health, hope for their relationships. But none of those books by themselves, even those written by Christian authors or from a Biblical perspective, are “living.” None of them have the living power of the Word of God to enter into our lives and show us what we’re really like – and then provide us with the answers on how to deal with all those imperfections.
• Enduring
In order to support his assertion, Peter quotes an Old Testament Scripture from Isaiah 40. Although our physical lives are like the grass and the flowers of the field that pass away, God’s Word is enduring – it lasts forever.
How many of those self-help books that you could find at Barnes and Noble today will still be on their bookshelves ten years from today? Probably a handful at best. There will always be new authors, new programs, new fads. But if there is still a Barnes and Noble 2,000 years from now, I can assure you that the one book I know I would be able to find there would be the Bible.
Far too many of us initially find our hope in the Word of God, but then we fail to renew that hope on a daily basis. We read the Bible and discover that God has chosen us and has a plan for our lives and we rejoice in that. We read the Bible and learn how Jesus died for our sins and came back from the dead and we place our faith and trust in Him and make Him our Lord and our Savior.
But then we get busy with our lives and we don’t make time to spend in the Bible on a daily basis and we wonder where our hope has gone. And so we search for hope in all those places we talked about earlier:
• Powerball jackpot
• Other people
• Horoscopes and other occult practices
• Government/police
• Medicine/Vaccines
And though we might find some temporary relief, we soon realize that none of those things provides lasting hope.
