The Remaining Three
A Sermon On Hope
1 Corinthians 13:13
College football fans knew the late Woody Hayes as a fierce competitor whose passion for winning once led him to slug an opposing player who intercepted an Ohio State pass. But when columnist Bob Greene interviewed him just before his final illness and asked if anything was as important as winning, Woody said yes. “The important thing is not always to win. The important thing is always to hope.”
Hope kept Red McDaniel going in his Vietnamese imprisonment. For him to abandon hope, he wrote, was to abandon survival itself and with it his sense of self and all his personhood. The Jews at Auschwitz and Treblinka lived in daily horror and fear of dying, even as they saw other Jews die. Still, they never lost hope that they personally would survive. “Where there is life, hope must never be relinquished,” one said.
Today, we are continuing our walk through the three characteristics that distinguish us a Christians. Last week, we looked at faith, and why that is an important factor in our lives. Without faith in God, hope cannot be found. Our old friend, The Oxford Dictionary of Current English, defines hope as “expectation and desire, e.g. for certain event(s) to occur.”
When we looked at faith last week, we learned that “faith is the substance of things HOPED for.” (Heb. 11:1) Faith and hope are tied together. One cannot be present without the other. That not only applies to spiritual areas, but personal ones as well.
Take little children at Christmastime for example. Little children are quick to write out their Christmas lists to Santa. They write down what toys they want. There is hope and faith. They believe that Santa will deliver the goods. They have faith in that. When the write the list, they hope it will reach Santa. They, hope and faith, go together.
In our Christian walk, hope can be referred to as a type of Spiritual Assurance. We place our faith, and our hope, our expectations and desire, in the promises of the Lord, and on the reliability of His word! We find that our lives, and hopes, are placed in the hands of a God that we cannot see.
Jeremiah 17:7,8 (NKJV) - “Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, and whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.
The term blessed is used often in the Psalms and Deuteronomy to describe the benefits that are added to one who is devoted to the Lord and His Word. The imagery of a fruitful tree derives directly from Ps. 1:3. This verse teaches that one who trusts, or hopes in God will not be free from trials and adversity, but that God will bring fruit and blessing in and through those difficulties.
Where can we find hope from our difficulties? As it has already be alluded to, we can find hope in God’s word. My mother passed away in the early hours of Dec. 23. My aunt called us from the hospital on the 22nd, and said that we had better come. As a family, we were trying to prepare ourselves for that phone call, but you are never truly prepared.
On Christmas eve, Melissa and I returned to Lower Hainesville for the Christmas Eve service. In all those days, through neglect and funeral arrangements, I forgot to read my Bible. After the service was over, I remember going to our bedroom, and grabbing a book I received when I graduated from High school. It was called “God’s Promises for the Graduate.” Inside there were different Scriptures, and one section dealt with mourning.
Despite the pain I was feeling, I could still sense the touch of God that night. Just like on any occassion, good or bad, happy or sad, we can find hope in His word to us!
Romans 15:4 (NCV) - Everything that was written in the past was written to teach us. The Scriptures give us patience and encouragement so that we can have hope.
This quotation from the Psalms reminds us that the Old Testament Scriptures were written for our learning. While they were not written directly to us, they contain invaluable lessons for us. As we encounter problems, conflicts, tribulations, and troubles, the Scriptures teach us to be steadfast, and they impart comfort. Therefore, instead of sinking under the waves, we are sustained by the hope that the Lord will see us through.
As I found out that Christmas Eve almost three years ago, and at different times in my life, God’s word, and more importantly the promises found within, are there to give all of us hope. When we were in Hainesville, whenever we would sing the song “Standing on the Promises,” I would ask the people just what promises they were standing upon. As each one was declared, the very reason why they choose each particular promise was evident. They had hope in God.
We have twenty-five cents—and all the promises of God.—Hudson Taylor, in a letter to his wife during a trying time in the work of China Inland Mission
I have thumbed my Bible many a year; I have never yet thumbed a broken promise. The promises have all been kept to me; not one good thing has failed.—Charles H. Spurgeon
Dr. Everek R. Storms of Ontario spent a vast amount of time studying the promises of Scripture. Writing in Contact Magazine, he said:
“The Holy Scriptures contain a grand total of 8,810 promises. How do I know? I counted them. All my life I have seen various figures quoted as to the number of promises in the Bible. The one most generally given is 30,000. Since this is a round number with four zeroes in it, I have always been a little suspicious about it. Furthermore, since there are only 31,101 verses in the Bible, it would mean that there would be practically one promise in every verse. I do not guarantee my count to be perfect, but it is the most accurate I know of.”
Dr. Storms goes on to classify the promises found in Scripture into eight kinds:
• There are 7,487 promises from God to man (about 85 percent of all the Bible’s promises).
• There are 991 instances of one person making a promise to another person.
• There are 290 promises from man to God.
• There are promises made by the angels, most of them found in Luke.
• There are nine promises made by “that old liar, the devil.” (For example, his promise to give Jesus all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship him.)
• Two promises are made by an evil spirit.
• Two are made by God the Father to God the Son.
Dr. Storms additionally found that one book of the Bible contains no promise at all—Titus. Ephesians has only six promises. On the other hand, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel have over 1,000 promises each.
What section of Scripture most impressed Dr. Storms? He wrote, “The most outstanding chapter as far as promises are concerned in Psalm 37. Practically every verse is a most wonderful promise.”
Objects Of Our Hope
God - Psalm 38:15 (NKJV) For in You, O LORD, I hope; You will hear, O Lord my God.
Christ & Salvation - Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
a) The first great benefit enjoyed by those of us who have been justified by faith is peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
b) Also we enjoy access into an indescribable position of favor with God. We are accepted in the Beloved One; therefore we are as near and dear to God as His own Beloved Son.
c)As if that were not enough, we also rejoice in hope of the glory of God. This means that we joyfully look forward to the time when we will not only gaze on the splendor of God, but will ourselves be manifested in glory
d) The fourth blessing that flows from justification is that we also glory in tribulations—not so much in their present discomforts as in their eventual results. One of the by-products of tribulation is that it produces perseverance or steadfastness. We could never develop perseverance if our lives were trouble-free. When God sees us bearing up under our trials and looking to Him to work out His purposes through them, He awards us His Good Endurance Seal of Approval. We have been tested and approved. And this sense of His approval fills us with hope. We know He is working in our lives, developing our character.
Hope does not disappoint. If we were to hope for something but then later find that we were never going to get it, our hope would be put to shame or disappointed. But the hope of our salvation will never be put to shame.
Hope of Eternal Life - Romans 8:22-25 (NCV) - We know that everything God made has been waiting until now in pain, like a woman ready to give birth. Not only the world, but we also have been waiting with pain inside us. We have the Spirit as the first part of God’s promise. So we are waiting for God to finish making us his own children, which means our bodies will be made free. We were saved, and we have this hope. If we see what we are waiting for, that is not really hope. People do not hope for something they already have. But we are hoping for something we do not have yet, and we are waiting for it patiently.
We live in a sighing, sobbing, suffering world. The whole creation groans and suffers pain like that of childbirth. Nature’s music is in the minor key. The earth is racked by calamities. The blight of death is on every living thing. Believers are not exempt. Although they have the firstfruits of the Spirit, guaranteeing their eventual deliverance, they still groan for that day of glory.
We were saved in this attitude of hope. We did not receive all the benefits of our salvation at the moment of conversion. From the outset we looked forward to full and final deliverance from sin, suffering, disease, and death. If we had already received these blessings, we wouldn’t be hoping for them. We only hope for what is in the future.
Our hope for deliverance from the presence of sin and all its baneful results is based on the promise of God, and is therefore as certain as if we had already received it. So we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.
Christ’s Return - Acts 1:9-11(NLT) - It was not long after he said this that he was taken up into the sky while they were watching, and he disappeared into a cloud. As they were straining their eyes to see him, two white-robed men suddenly stood there among them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why are you standing here staring at the sky? Jesus has been taken away from you into heaven. And someday, just as you saw him go, he will return!”
Faith in the eternal God offers a hope that despair cannot diminish. It brings an optimism that pessimism cannot eclipse. It builds a confidence that adversities cannot weaken. It instils a pleasure that pain cannot destroy—faith in the eternal God!
