There Is One Hope Series

A. As you know, we are in a sermon series about the 7 ones that equal unity.

1. God wants His people to be unified and the 7 ones are the things that unite us.

2. So far in our series we have discussed the one body and the one Spirit.

3. Today, we want to talk about a subject that is one of the most encouraging and inspiring of the 7 ones – there is one hope.

B. Let’s begin with an illustration from the Peanuts.

1. Lucy asked Linus, “You know what we’re going to do tomorrow?”

2. Lucy continued, “Patty and Violet and I are going on a picnic!”

3. Lucy concluded, “I just hope to goodness that it doesn’t rain.”

4. Linus, the resident theologian, replied, “‘Hoping to goodness’ is not theologically sound!”

C. This is a great launching point because the biblical “one hope” that we are discussing today is not an uncertain “hope so” type of hope, like the way we often use the word hope.

1. Like Lucy, we often say, “I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow on our picnic,” but because we live here in CNY, and have the Great Lakes nearby, then there is a pretty good chance it is going to rain tomorrow.

2. We use the “hope so” kind of hope when we talk about hoping to win the lottery, or hoping that our sports team will win – we hope the SU Orangemen will win the national football championship – we hope the Bills will win the Super Bowl – that’s “hope so” hope.

3. Our Christian faith gives us a “know so” hope, not a “hope so” hope.

4. In biblical hope, we hope for things that are absolutely certain, but have just not yet been realized.

D. How can we be so certain about the biblical things we hope for? They are a certainty because God has promised them and God always keeps His promises.

1. Look at how the writer of Hebrews explained it: 13 For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater to swear by, he swore by himself: 14 I will indeed bless you, and I will greatly multiply you. 15 And so, after waiting patiently, Abraham obtained the promise. 16 For people swear by something greater than themselves, and for them a confirming oath ends every dispute. 17 Because God wanted to show his unchangeable purpose even more clearly to the heirs of the promise, he guaranteed it with an oath, 18 so that through two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to seize the hope set before us. 19 We have this hope as an anchor for the soul, firm and secure. (Heb. 6:13-19)

2. God had promised that Abraham would have a son with Sarah and many descendants to follow – He made the promise when Abraham was already 75 years old, but then Abraham and Sarah had to wait 25 years for the promise to be fulfilled.

3. I think that one of the reasons why God made Abraham wait so long was to prove how God is able to keep His promises and can even do so in a man and a woman who are way past child-bearing age.

4. When God makes us a promise, He has no one greater than Himself to swear by, but when He makes a promise, we can know that He will keep it – because it is impossible for God to lie.

5. God’s promise of our salvation through Jesus is the hope of our calling and it is an anchor for our souls, firm and secure.

6. Aren’t you thankful about that? Amen!!

E. There is no sadder word in the English language than the word “hopeless.”

1. We never want to hear that word from the doctor (“I’m sorry, your case is hopeless”), or the marriage counselor (“I’m sorry, your marriage is hopeless”), or the pilot of the plane we are on (“I’m sorry, our situation is hopeless”).

2. And we certainly don’t want to hear it from our Creator and Judge.

F. We live in a world and at a time where there is little hope.

1. Many years ago, an S-4 submarine was rammed by another ship off the coast of Massachusetts and quickly sank.

a. The entire crew was trapped in the submarine many feet below the surface.

b. Helplessly the men clung bravely to life as the oxygen slowly gave out.

c. When divers arrived at the sunken submarine, they could hear a tapping sound and recognized the dots and dashes of Morse code.

d. The question that was being tapped was: “Is…there…any…hope?”

2. This seems to be the cry of humanity today - “Is there any hope?” “Is there anything worth living for?”