[0:00] That we didn't sing that this morning, Chrissy. So that's okay because you're stuck with the hope sermon anyway, right? If you're able to and willing, please stand with me as we look into God's Word.
[0:13] First Peter chapter 1 and I'm going to read verses 3 through 9. Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope.
[0:30] Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for the salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
[0:50] In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold, which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
[1:11] And though you have not seen him, you love him. And though you do not see him now, but believe in him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
[1:28] Would you pray with me? Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you for this day that we can gather in your name. We thank you, Father, for that time of worship. We thank you for our pastor bringing an opening prayer and the truth of the word.
[1:43] But we thank you now, Father, for this time in which we ask you to move upon our hearts, our minds, our souls. Teach us, Father, from your word what you would have us to learn.
[1:55] We invite you to be here in a very special way. You know the needs of each heart that's here this morning. We ask God through your word you would meet it. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
[2:09] So I want to talk this morning a little bit about the truth of hope. Hope is a word that appears more than 100 times in the Bible, depending on the version. New King James has it 151 times, the word hope.
[2:23] The King James version has in there 133. NIV wins, that has 180, and the ESV has 164. In most of these, hope is always tied to the promises of God.
[2:40] I thought about, because there were so many verses of hope, I thought about just putting together scriptures of hope for about 30 minutes. When I was young, we had a visiting pastor who actually came and preached on the second coming of Christ.
[2:55] He talked for 30 minutes, and he did nothing but quote the scripture about the second coming of Christ. It was tremendously powerful. But what impressed me most was he had memorized all those together.
[3:11] That doesn't happen with me. I'm going to have to talk. Hope is a powerfully good word in our English language. Hope is a beautiful word that people use all over the world.
[3:25] And it represents the possibility of a positive outcome. A kind of a beacon of light in the darkness that we live in. The secular definition of hope.
[3:37] Hope is the optimistic attitude of mind based on expectation of positive outcomes. I don't like that. That idea about the attitude of my mind about hope.
[3:51] My mind and attitude sometimes doesn't set things straight. But if you pay attention and listen carefully, to listen to how people use the word hope on a daily basis, we are literally hope obsessed.
[4:06] It's there. We constantly speak in a hope language. I hope your business does well. I hope you're feeling well. I hope it doesn't rain. I hope my sickness is not very bad.
[4:20] I hope you don't fall asleep during the sermon. I mean, we use it all the time. But today in our culture, hope is expecting something to happen, but not being entirely sure it will.
[4:33] More like a wish. For example, I hope the Titans win the Super Bowl. Probably not going to happen, Caleb, right? No, okay.
[4:45] Hope is a belief that tomorrow will be a better day. Day after day, the things we hope for actually fuels us throughout the day. And when you think there's absolutely no hope left, just remember the lobsters in the aquarium tank in the Titanic's restaurant.
[5:03] Thank you, Christy. It takes some people a while, but you'll get it. Okay. When we hope, we're really asking for a peace of mind and peace of heart.
[5:16] But let's be honest. Most of our hopes disappoint us. But the Bible has a very good and a different outlook on hope. Hope is highly esteemed in the Word of God.
[5:30] And hope is spoken many times by the biblical characters that we read about all the time. Hope in the Bible is not a mere wish, as used today. But implies that, because a wish implies doubt.
[5:44] Now, on the contrary, hope in the Bible is confidently expecting that something will happen, and you're waiting patiently with joy and pleasure. Hope is extremely important to you, and hope is important to God, that you have hope.
[6:02] Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13, 13, there's only three things that will last, faith, hope, and love.
[6:13] And many times we hear good sermons about faith, and we hear excellent sermons on love, but not so much about hope. Here's a biblical definition of hope.
[6:26] The sure and confident expectation of receiving what God has promised us in the future. I like that. I read Tony Evans' definition of hope.
[6:38] Hope is a confident expectation of God fulfilling his promises. John Piper wrote, Christian hope is a confidence that something will come to pass, because God has promised it will come to pass.
[6:53] But my favorite, in a devotional by Paul David Tripp, hope is not a thing, not a location, not a situation, not an experience.
[7:04] Hope is a person, and his name is Jesus. There's only two places in the world that we can look for hope. In the hands of a sovereign God, or in the world.
[7:17] Hope in God is a sure hope. I want to share four truths this morning. The first one is, the world offers a dead hope.
[7:28] Hope. If you're a human being, you hope. Everyone bases their hope on something. So what do you base your hope on? What holds your hope? I don't know about you, but every day that passes, it seems harder to hope as we listen to what's happening in the world.
[7:45] We find ourselves in a period of history, I think, that is greater peril than ever before. The world is marked by natural disasters, wars, violence and crime, sexual immorality, social upheaval, inflation, poverty.
[8:01] It has to break your heart when you read about a man that goes into a Catholic Christian school and shoots young children. Folks, we're in trouble.
[8:13] And then you have to add what's going on in the world to the personal challenges that you and I face on the day-to-day basis. Day-to-day basis, I can say that. So the question is, where does the world then turn to hope?
[8:27] Where do they place it? I'm afraid some place it on the world's government leaders and our politicians who we elect to try to represent us.
[8:38] We're trying to hope in the future by those higher education institutions that are training and teaching and building up young people. We also put our hope into technology, and now into artificial intelligence that's going to make life better.
[8:58] We also, unfortunately, put our hope many times into social media and entertainment. Years ago, when we were young, back in 1967, there was a song that came out that was very, very popular.
[9:15] Only the older folks here will remember it. It's a wonderful world. I don't think that would be written in 2025. Do you? Because, folks, let's be honest.
[9:27] It's not a wonderful world. Frankly, it's absolutely a terrible world. The other day, I was driving, and I saw an ugly car.
[9:38] I mean, this was not only ugly. It was ugly upon ugly. There was a huge gash in the front fender. One of the doors was put together with a bailing wire.
[9:48] There was rust eating out throughout the body of the car. The muffler was loose, and every time it hit a bump, there were sparks flying out from underneath it.
[10:00] You couldn't tell the original color of the car because the rust had pretty much taken it away, and where they had tried to paint it several times, there were several colors. Who knows what the original color was?
[10:12] But what was really interesting about the car was the bumper sticker. Here's what it read. This is not an abandoned car.
[10:25] Don't you love that? I mean, whoever owned that car had hope, first of all, that nobody was going to pick it up and take it to the junkyard. But secondly, he had hope that that car was going to get him to point A and to point B.
[10:40] Folks, this is not an abandoned world. A long time ago, in a manger, a baby was born, and it was a sign to you and I, this is not an abandoned world.
[10:59] So the first truth I'd share again is the world offers a dead hope. Truthfully, the only hope in the world is the Christian faith. Everything else leads to hopelessness and meaningless.
[11:10] Hope is our Christian anchor. Truth number two, there will be times, even in believer's life, that you will struggle with hope.
[11:24] And if you're struggling with hope this morning, you are not alone. Because life and trouble are kind of married together. God has never promised us that we would not face problems and trials.
[11:37] I mean, he says it very clearly. You're going to face trials and persecutions. Things are going to be tough. But in Romans 8, 37, he also said, in all these things, you and I would be overcomers.
[11:50] We would conquer those things. But hopelessness does happen in our life. It comes in times of difficulty, defeat, and discouragement. Hopelessness actually comes very often when we actually hit rock bottom.
[12:08] Consider King David, God after man's own heart, one who wrote such beautiful psalms of praises and how much he loved the law of God.
[12:18] But listen to his words in Psalms 42, 11. Why are you in despair, my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise him.
[12:33] The help of my countenance and my God. God sometimes allows painful situations in our life because he's trying to do something great in his purpose for you and I.
[12:49] God is, again, no matter how strong your faith and your hope is, he will tend to confuse you.
[13:00] There will be moments in your life where you will actually say, God, what is going on? And truthfully, God may let us hit rock bottom just to let us know that he is the rock at the bottom.
[13:14] And God sometimes uses pain in our life. And he does that, hopefully, to make us stronger, to help us to strip away our idea of self-sufficiency and self-dependency and lean upon him to help us, to strengthen us, and help us to grow.
[13:34] So the question, though, is, does God put more on us than we can bear? Can we take it? Then we consider the words of Paul.
[13:48] Paul had a tremendous ministry. He did great work building churches, bringing the gospel to people. But listen to his words in 2 Corinthians 1.8.
[14:01] We do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction. We were burdened excessively beyond our strength so that we despaired even of life.
[14:15] God takes us someplace where we just need to understand we need to live in complete dependence on him so that he can accomplish all he wants to do in our lives.
[14:27] Because in verse 9 and 10, Paul knows he still has hope. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, in whom we have set our hope.
[14:46] This morning, folks, there's a reason to hope. No matter how hard life is and how bad it looks and how weak you feel, Jesus Christ, our Savior, is right beside us.
[14:59] He has promised never to leave us nor forsake us. Nothing is going to keep him from healing and restore us no matter what we are going through.
[15:15] Though things may seem hopeless, just remember how hopeless it looked to the disciples who saw Jesus Christ dying on the cross. God can give back what you think you have lost.
[15:31] Christians always have hope that things are going to work out in the end. So, the world offers a dead hope. Truthfully, as believers, we're going to sometimes struggle with hope.
[15:42] But truth number three, you can trust God. Trust God. He does not lie. He does not deceive. God is greater than our circumstances, our situations, our setbacks, our disappointments, and anything we're facing.
[15:58] He's bigger than anything and everything else in our lives. It doesn't matter how depressing life may seem. The God who has called us and chosen us will be with us and help us.
[16:11] Christ is our living hope. I have a favorite author. He makes things kind of strange sometimes, but I like what he said. If we cannot trust God and if our hope is not true, we are turnips.
[16:27] But, we only live a little while, then die, and then we're buried, providing fertilizer for other turnips. I like the way he puts hope in perspective.
[16:42] You can trust God. One of the most amazing scriptures in the Bible is Lamentations 3, verses 21 through 26. It was written by the prophet Jeremiah.
[16:52] As he was sitting on a hillside looking down on the desolated city of Jerusalem after Nebuchadnezzar had attacked the city, ravaged it, killed the inhabitants, destroyed the temples, and took captives.
[17:04] Hear his words. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases.
[17:16] His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in him.
[17:31] The Lord is good unto him that waiteth for him, to him that seeketh him. Years ago, I don't hear it very often, but there used to be a song, He is all I need.
[17:44] Do you remember that, Christy? It's an old one, again, my generation. He is all I need. He is all I need. Jesus is all I need. You don't know that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you've got.
[17:59] But you can trust him. Truth number four, as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we have a living hope. The message of Jesus Christ is a message of hope that he is the Savior, came and died for our sins.
[18:14] His blood has purchased our salvation. We are clothed by his righteousness, and we have the hope, again, that he is coming back, and we will be resurrected with him because he defeated sin, death, and the grave.
[18:28] What's interesting in the scripture that we read is that Peter teaches some very interesting principles about trouble. And remember, he's writing this to a group of people in churches who are going through severe trials and persecutions.
[18:44] Look at verse 6 for a moment. Look at what he says about trouble. Verse 6 says, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while.
[18:58] So trouble may come, but he says what? It's going to be just for a little while. But he goes on to say that trouble has a purpose because he says, In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary.
[19:15] So it's not going to last forever. It's just going to be a little while. And it's for a purpose. God's putting it for us to grow in him.
[19:27] But also, look, trouble brings turmoil. He's honest about it. In verse 6, If necessary, you have been distressed. And we've all been there.
[19:38] But also, trouble comes in various forms because he says in verse 6, distressed by various trials. Your trials may be different than my trials.
[19:49] My trials may be different than your trials, but folks, they will come because God has said you will face trials and tribulations. But also, again, we have so many great reasons for hope.
[20:05] This passage of Scripture, Peter has listed many of them. Look at verse 3 again with me. Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who, according to his great mercy, has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
[20:25] So we have hope because Jesus Christ has conquered sin, death, and the grave. But again, look at verse 3. He says, why we have hope? Because of his great mercy that has caused you and I to be born again.
[20:40] Look at verse 4. We have hope because we're going to gain an inheritance. Verse 4 says, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled.
[20:53] We have hope also because in verse 5 it says, we who are protected by the power of God, you and I, protected by the power of God through faith.
[21:05] And then look at verse 9. We have hope because obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of our souls.
[21:17] We have hope because it's based upon God's strength and God's authority in his word. So those are the four truths that I think we should consider.
[21:28] The world offers a false hope, a dead hope. Believers sometimes will struggle with hope. You can trust God and we have a living hope and so many other hopes because of God.
[21:43] Hope is expectant. Hope demonstrates trust in God forever. Hope is a foundation for our faith. Hope is not a gamble.
[21:55] It's not an attitude of mine. Hope is a gift from God. It is in God alone that we can trust and can only find hope.
[22:07] In 1834, a gentleman named Edward Mote wrote a great anthem, a hymn that I love to sing, The Solid Rock. Do you know the words? My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
[22:24] I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly lean on Jesus' name. If you are not leaning on Jesus Christ and his name as your savior, then the bad news is you have absolutely no hope.
[22:42] Hope in God and you and I will never regret it. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you and praise you again because you have given us your promises and throughout the word of God you have promised so many wonderful things for us.
[23:01] And because, Father, in our daily lives we can trust you that you will deliver us, that you will help us, and you will always be with us, that we have every day hope because of you being in our lives.
[23:15] We praise you and thank you for this time. We ask, Heavenly Father, that each day as we begin each morning remember how great your faithfulness is and how great your mercy is.
[23:29] All these things we ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our precious Lord and Savior. Amen. Amen.