Okay, turn with me to Romans
15. Romans 15. Last week, we looked
at the first seven verses. And the Bible study was on the
subject of patience. And the reason is because of
verse 5. It says, Now the God of patience This chapter calls
our Lord God three things, three glorious things. And in verse
5 it says, the God of patience. Let's read the first seven verses.
Verse 1 says, We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities
of the weak and not to please ourselves. Let every one of us
please his neighbor for good to edification. for even Christ
pleased not himself." That's the reason right there. Christ
pleased not himself, but as it is written, the reproaches of
them that reproached thee fell on me. For whatsoever things
were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through
patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope. Now the God
of patience and consolation grant you to be like-minded one toward
another according to Christ Jesus. The margin says, after the example
of Christ Jesus. That you may with one mind and
one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Wherefore receive ye one another as Christ also received us. And how did he receive us? As
sinners. Receive ye one another as Christ
also received us to the glory of God. So the exhortation was,
and it still is, Because Christ was patient for our sake. He pleased not Himself, but He
was patient for our sake. And because of that, we ought
to be patient with one another for Christ's sake. We ought to
just be patient with one another. Lord, increase our patience.
Right? Give us patience and give it
to us now. Well, the subject today comes
from verse 13. It says, now the God of hope. Hope. We have hope. And the reason
that we have hope is because of verse 33. Look at verse 33. It says, now the God of peace. The God of patience. The God
of hope. The God of peace. God Himself made peace for us
with God. And it's called grace and it
really is amazing. It really is. It's amazing to
think of the fact of who our God is. Once you see who our
God is, it's amazing. He was angry with the wicked. He was angry with the wicked,
and he had no choice, because he's holy, he had to punish sin. He was angry with the wicked,
and he had to punish sin. But God appeased himself. by sacrificing his own self. Well, he sacrificed his son.
That's right. God himself. He sacrificed his
own self and he satisfied his own demands for justice by trading
places with the guilty and then taking it all out on his own
self. Is that not amazing? He poured His wrath on His own
self. I think that is just amazing. You can listen. Don't turn. This
is Acts 20 verse 28 says, Take heed therefore unto yourselves
and to all the flock over which the Holy Ghost hath made you
overseers to feed the church of God. The church of God. which He hath purchased with
His own blood." God purchased His church with His own blood. And because of that peace that
God made for us, we now have hope. All right? We have hope. Now, do you know why we believe
what we believe? and why I preach what I preach.
The reason that I preach this is because God said it in His
Word. That's the reason. Why do we
believe what we believe? It's because God said it in His
Word. Every single thing we believe,
God said in His Word. And I'm grateful, because of
what we're looking at today, I'm grateful for every scripture
that He's given us that says, Jews and Gentiles, my flesh Reads
that and it doesn't mean anything to my flesh. I skip over it.
You know, well, that's you that's the old law That's Old Testament
stuff. That's Jews and Gentiles and We take that for granted
If this didn't say Jews and Gentiles we could have no hope We're all
Gentiles I Cornelius is a man in Acts chapter
10, and I'm about to tell you something about him here in just
a minute in the next service. But we're going to look at him
real soon. The story is Peter was given
a vision by the Lord, and a sheet came down and it was all these
animals that were unclean to the eyes of the Jews. And the
Lord said, ìKill and eat.î And Peter said, ìNot so, Lord. Iíve
never put anything unclean into my mouth.î And he said, ìDonít
call unclean what Iíve made clean.î The Jews thought of the Gentiles
as being completely and totally unclean, anti-God, no hope with
God, just like we today think of who's still over there, the
Muslims. That's anti-God. You see what
I'm saying? The Gentiles were rebels against God We're Gentiles. We are Gentiles. Absolute rebels
against God. And had this not said to the
Jew and the Gentile, we could have no hope. Absolutely no hope. But God has given us His Word,
and that's what Paul is telling us right here. Look at Romans
15, verse 8 says, Now I say that Jesus Christ was
a minister of the circumcision. Christ was a minister of the
Jews to Israel. He said, I'm not sent but to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He told all of his apostles,
don't go to the Gentiles. Verse 8 says, Now I say that
Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth
of God. He went to the circumcision for
the truth of God. But the reason was, it goes on
to say here in verse 8, to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. That's why. The promise of God's
Word said that the Messiah would come and be born of the tribe
of Judah. The seed of David, the seed of
Abraham, and he was. And the promise of God said that
he would be of the circumcision, circumcised the eighth day, and
he was. He was born king of the Jews,
but not for the purpose of damning all the Gentiles. It was all for the purpose of
confirming the promises, confirming the Scripture, confirming the
Word of God, that every word in it is true. It's all true. It was for the purpose of giving
us absolute hope in every promise. And now Paul is going to do for
them what we still do right now. He's telling them and he's going
to show them. When I first started preaching, I received what every man receives,
a lot of advice. And it's needed advice. And I
always, I had a favorite advice giver and just a dear, sweet
man to me. But he told me over and over
and over and over, tell them and then show them. Over and over, you know who that
is, don't you? Tell them and then show them. Tell them what
it says and then show them what it says. And that's what Paul
is doing right here. He's telling them and he's showing
them. Show them what the scripture
says. And Paul is telling them, I have
some scriptures that are going to give you some hope. All right?
Now verse 8 says, Now I say that Jesus Christ was a minister of
the circumcision for the truth of God, to confirm the promises
made unto the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God
for His mercy, as it is written, For this cause I will confess
to thee among the Gentiles, and sing unto thy name." As it is
written, right there he's quoting 2 Samuel 22 50. And he's also
quoting Psalm 1849. So he gives them a scripture.
All right? For this cause I will confess to thee among the Gentiles.
The Word of God is coming to the Gentiles. Verse 10 says, And again he saith,
Rejoice ye Gentiles with his people. Again he saith. That's Deuteronomy 32, 43. The
Gentiles are going to rejoice with his people. Verse 11, and
again, praise the Lord, all ye Gentiles, and laud Him, all ye
people. That's Psalm 117, verse 1. Gentiles, you're going to have
much reason to praise the Lord and laud and magnify His name. Why? What is that reason? He
said, there's a root. Verse 12 says, And again Isaiah
said, There shall be a root of Jesse, and he that shall rise
to reign over the Gentiles, in him shall the Gentiles trust.
That's Isaiah 11 verse 10. So he says in verse 13, Now the
God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing. believing this Word, believing
the promises of this Word, that you may abound in hope through
the power of the Holy Ghost. Now, when I was finishing this
Bible study yesterday, I got to this point and realized that
everything that I have said is true and factual and to the mind. But this has got to be to the
heart. All right? This has got to be to the heart.
You know, we believe and we take it for granted that God has revealed
to us the truth of His Word. And we take for granted the fact
that He's had mercy on us. He chose to have mercy on some
Gentiles in Tennessee, America. As though we were in the Scriptures,
out in Lodibar. And God had mercy on us. This is a tough life. It's just
a tough life. And we all know in here that
there is one thing needful, don't we? There's only one thing that
matters. We're going to get to the end of this life and everything
we did up to that point means nothing. It doesn't mean anything.
What we accumulated, it means nothing. What we get to put on
our resume, it means nothing. Absolutely nothing. There's going
to be one thing that matters. And I was thinking about each
one of you. When I sit there at my desk,
I have your faces where you sit in the room. And we all have very different circumstances.
Very, very different circumstances. But the thing that we all collectively
need through the rest of this journey is hope. You know that? We need some hope. We need Christ,
who is our hope. We need faith, which is not of
ourselves, but it's given to us by the Spirit of Christ Himself.
It's the faith of Christ. But we need some hope. And some
of us in here just started the journey of life. And by God's
grace, you know, they're going to experience getting married
and establishing a home and the joy and the sorrow of raising
children. And what I want you to have is
hope. I mean, that's what I want you
individually to have, is some hope. Some of us in the middle are
just trying to get over the hump. And what we need is some hope. Keep going. Some of us in here are approaching
the end of the course. And it has nothing to do with
age. The youngest person in here could be the next member of this
congregation to go meet his Maker. And we're going to stand before
God. I mean, we are really going to stand before God. And as that
individual gets to the end of his course and leaves this world
and crosses over, and all of a sudden there is God on his
throne, what I want that soul to have as he leaves and stands
before God is some hope. We need some hope. Lord, please don't let me stand
before him and hear him say, depart from me, I never knew
you. Can you imagine the shock? Nobody is expecting that. Not
one soul on earth, even absolute hell racers are not expecting
to hear that. Lord, give me some hope that
I have found favor with God. Give me some hope that His love
has been shed abroad in me. And just like Paul gave these
Romans some scriptures, I found a couple of scriptures for us.
And it really gave me a little bit of hope. Turn with me over
to Psalm 33. There's no doubt in our mind
that we've sinned against God, is there? No doubt. There's no
doubt in our minds that without God's mercy we are going to spend
eternity in hell, is there? No doubt in our mind. Well, mercy
can be had in the blood that Christ shed on the cross of Calvary. It can be had. Do you hope that
that blood was shed for you? I mean, really? I mean, if you
assess your soul, if I went into other congregations in Kingsport
right now and asked people, is all of your hope, I mean, not
adding anything to it, is all of your hope in the blood that
Christ shed 2,000 years ago, is that where all of your hope
lies? all of your hope. Most people
would say no. But I ask myself and I ask you,
do you hope that that blood was shed for you? That is all my mercy and forgiveness
with God. It's in that blood. If you do,
look at Psalm 33 verse 18. It says, Behold the eye of the
Lord is upon them that fear Him, upon them that hope in His mercy. The eye of the Lord is on them. If you hope in His mercy, if
you really just, I've got nothing to show for myself, And I'm nothing
but a worthless sinner, but I know God is merciful in the blood
of Christ, and that's all my hope when I go stand before God.
If you hope in His mercy, then what that means is the eye of
the Lord is on you. Is that not great? You can go meet God knowing not
only is He not going to say, I never knew you, But he's going
to say, since before I formed you in the belly, I've had my
eye on you. All right, now let's take this
hope one step further, this fear of the Lord and hope in His mercy.
Go to Psalm 147. Psalm 147 verse 11 says, ìThe
Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that
hope in His mercy.î Not only is His eye on them that fear
Him and hope in His mercy, but He takes pleasure in them. Can
you imagine? Can you believe that? He takes pleasure in those who
are truly hoping for mercy in the blood of Christ. If God didn't
say that in His Word, I would never believe that. I know what
I am. He takes pleasure in them. These words were written that
we might have hope. This I recall to my mind, therefore
have I hope. Why would He take pleasure in
us? How could He take pleasure in us? The only reason is because
He put us in Christ. That's the only reason. And if
He's well-pleased with Christ, then He's well-pleased with us.
We have a sure hope. We have a sure hope in Christ.
Hope means expected anticipation. It doesn't mean I'm just really
hoping. It means expected anticipation. That's a wonderful hope, isn't
it? Now, here's my heart's hope, and this is the hope of every
true believer. We want to be with Christ, don't we? I want
to see Him. I want to hug Him. I want to
hear Him. I want to be with Christ, and
I want to be with Christ's people. I really do. We want to spend eternity with
Christ, worshiping Christ with His people, all of us together. There is a real kingdom and we hope, we have expected
anticipation to be members of it, real members of this kingdom. And the thought of one day physically
being among the kingdom of God, adoring Christ, puts everything
in perspective on this earth, doesn't it? Everything in this
earth is immediately put into perspective. It's less than dust,
nothing, and Christ is all. And being in Him, with Him, is
everything. We love His kingdom, we love
His people. The song says, I love thy kingdom,
Lord, the house of thine abode, the church. Our blessed Redeemer
saved with His own precious blood. That's what we love. We love
each other. We hope to be together forever,
worshiping our Savior. Another song says, when we asunder
part, it gives us inward pain. When we lose each other in this
life, when God takes one of His own, it does give us inward pain.
And that's because we love Christ and we love His people. And it
gives us inward pain. But turn with me to 1 Thessalonians
chapter 4. There is going to come a point
when the Lord will take one of us from this assembly. Somebody He will take. And when
that happens, we are going to sorrow. We are. But by God's grace and by God's
Spirit, we are not going to sorrow as those which have no hope.
Look at 1 Thessalonians 4 verse 13. For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus I'm sorry, verse 13, I would
not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which
are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no
hope. Okay? Sorrow not. For if we believe
that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep
in Jesus, believing the same thing, having the same faith,
Will God bring with Him? God is going to bring them with
Him when He returns. Our Lord kept telling us so that
we might have hope. He is not dead. He sleepeth. She sleepeth. And He said, Whosoever
liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Do you believe? Do you believe that? Verse 15,
ìFor this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we
which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall
not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and
with the trump of God.î And I love it over in 1 Corinthians 15,
it says, ìAnd the trump shall sound.î I'm a musician and I can't wait
to hear those horns. I really can't. Verse 16, the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel,
with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.
Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. So shall we
ever be with the Lord. That does not even seem real,
does it? But one of these days, as in the days of Noah, when
everybody's going about their business, marrying, giving in
marriage, fixing axles, selling cars, all of a sudden, the trump
shall resound. You will know it's the trump.
There'll be no doubt in your mind, that is my God. And there
is my Lord. And there are our loved ones.
And here we go. Sweet hour of prayer, farewell. That's something to look forward
to, isn't it? I have hope. I have hope in that.
According to God's Word, I plead the blood of Christ alone, and
my only hope before that throne is God's mercy, and therefore
I shall rise. All right, you're dismissed.