Wednesday evening, Gabe brought
a message from 1 Thessalonians 1. And part of verse 3 caught
my attention. 1 Thessalonians 1.3 says, Remembering
without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our Father. That phrase, patience of hope,
led me to this morning's study. 1 Peter 3.15, Peter tells us,
strangers elect according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, that we should be ready always to give an answer to every
man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear. Have you ever been confronted
with someone who asked you for a reason for your hope? That
question will come in many variations, a variety of ways it will be
answered or asked. And for me personally, I've been
asked, and when I tried to answer, I left not only the person who
asked me the question confused and confounded, but myself confused
and confounded. My answer was horrendous. Caused me to want to crawl into
a hole and just cover up because I could not answer in a way that magnified who Christ is
in a way that I wanted to. And I hope this little study
will be able to bring to our remembrance when we're asked,
what is a reason for your hope? And before we begin, we've got
to define what we mean by the word hope here. So often in today's vocabulary,
hope means wishful thinking. When I was in school and someone
came by after a test and said, well, how'd you do? I hope I
passed. I had no reason to expect that
I was going to pass. But if the teacher graded on
a curve, I might squeeze by. I hope I pass. That's not a hope to give any
reason for having a hope. That's, there's just nothing
there. This word that we're talking
about this morning is a hope, a confident expectation, trust. I know the outcome. This is the
way it's going to be. I can hope it. I can trust in
what's coming. There aren't many young ones
here, but in Kingsport, we've got a slew of young kids. And those parents take their
kids down to the nursery And when they finally reach a certain
age, the kid stops being unhappy about going to the nursery. They're
okay with being left. They have a hope. They expect
in about an hour's time, mama's coming back to get me. It's gonna
happen. For those of you that are still
in school, You don't go into the school every day. You don't
leave home and go to school without a hope of going home. You are confident. You have a
hope. You're not there right then,
but you have the hope of returning home at the end of the day. It's
going to happen. When we watch someone we love
leave home, They're going out to get groceries, they're going
to their jobs, going on a short trip with friends. We have an
expectation they're going to come back home. We'll miss them
while they're gone, but they're coming back. We have a hope.
That's the hope we're talking about, this hope that looks away
from what is currently occurring in our lives and looks to the
end, where we're going. Now, I've spent enough time trying
to define that. Let's see a couple of things
concerning the hope we have in Christ before we address our
reason for the hope. One thing that is absolutely
certain, our hope will be displayed. It's going to be revealed. It
can't be hidden. How is it going to be revealed?
here in 1 Peter 3 beginning in verse 8. Finally, Be ye all of one mind,
having compassion one of another, love as brethren, be pitiful,
be courteous, not rendering evil for evil, or railing for railing,
but contrarywise blessing, knowing that ye are there and too cold,
that ye should inherit a blessing. For he that will love life and
see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil and his
lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil and do good. Let him seek peace and ensue
it. For the eyes of the Lord are
over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers.
But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil. And who is
he that will harm you, if you be followers of that which is
good? But, and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are
ye. And be not afraid of their terror,
neither be troubled. but sanctify the Lord God in
your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man
that asketh you a reason for the hope that is in you with
meekness and fear." When will our hope, our trust, our confidence
in our Lord be revealed in such a way that a friend, a loved
one, possibly even a stranger will stop, take notice, and ask
you, how can you possibly bear this trial? How can you act this
way with all that has befallen you? There's a lady Gabe has told
us about whose daughter passed away. I believe it was a sudden
passing. And this lady had a friend who
came to her house And this friend wanted everybody to leave. She
went to her friend and said, we need to kick everybody out.
And I want you to run through this house screaming and showing
how upset you are. And this dear lady, sister in
Christ, replied to her friend and said, Lord took my daughter. I am sad, but his will be done."
Something to that effect. That is an extreme case of someone
asking. That's what the lady was asking.
She was saying, why aren't you acting like I would have acted?
Why aren't you falling apart? When Audrey was born, and we
received the diagnosis of her having Down syndrome, there were
a few of my friends that came from work. We were in Knoxville
at that time, and a few friends came from work, and we didn't
tell them anything. My parents hadn't arrived, and
we wanted to tell them before we told anybody else. A few friends came, and then
my parents came, and my best friend finally came. And we didn't
tell him either. We had told my parents. They had left. My best friend
was there. He came, held Audrey. We visited. He left. And the
next day, we found out she was going to have to go to the NICU.
And so I called to let him know everything that was going on. And after I told him everything,
I'm sorry. It's been a while since I've remembered this. After
I told him everything that was happening, he stopped me and
he goes, you knew last night when I was there? I said, yeah, we knew. And he
just couldn't get over that we knew and we had decided before
everybody came, we weren't going to tell everybody. It was a celebration. Audrey was born. We weren't going
to say anything to anyone at that time. I didn't realize it then, but
my friend was asking, why weren't you falling apart? Why didn't this just devastate
you? The question comes in all varieties. Nobody's going to walk up to
you and say, what is your hope in the Lord Jesus Christ? Most
are not. It's going to come subtly. And
a lot of times, even with that example, I didn't realize he
was asking that at that point. Our hope will be fully on display
under trials and tribulations. I thought of Israel at the Red
Sea. Have you pondered how good they
appeared to have it in Egypt towards the end of their captivity?
These slaves Watch the Egyptians go through plague, after plague,
after plague, and nothing touched them. They didn't have anything occur
to them. Egypt was falling apart, and
they were hedged about. They were protected. They had
it pretty good there towards those last days. They went to
their Egyptian neighbors and borrowed jewels of silver and
jewels of gold, anything they asked for, they got. They ruined
Egypt when they left. Then they followed the Lord and
they left Egypt, got to the Red Sea, where they literally found
themselves between a rock and a hard place, hemmed in, Red
Sea before them, cliffs and thorny places on either side, and the
army of Egypt coming up behind them with their 600 chariots. From the perspective of the Egyptian
army, these slaves had no reason to hope for escape. They were
coming, they were going to destroy, and they were going to return
all that remained to their rightful place as their slaves. Well Moses,
you've brought the people out here, you've hemmed them in,
the army of Egypt is coming to destroy them. What's your hope
now? Fear ye not. Stand still and
see the salvation of the Lord. Moses had no natural, no visible
reason at that moment to have any confidence in escaping. With
Egypt behind, even the people of Israel turned against him,
yet he demonstrated his hope and his confidence in the God
of his salvation. Just as Moses did in his time
of dire distress, the child of God will also demonstrate our
hope when trouble comes. And the question will eventually
come, especially from those who are watching us, especially from
those whose trust is in a little g-god, who as they are watching
us, submit, bow to the sovereign hand of our God. They won't be
able to understand, they can't enter in, because if they were
under that same condition, they would believe their little G-God
had abandoned them and left them. When that day comes, when our
hearts are heavy, when all about us appears to be falling apart,
When we flee to the Lord our salvation and those about us
ask, how is it you haven't completely fallen apart? Or as Job's wife
said, does thou still retain thine integrity? Curse God and
die. May we be able to tell them a
reason of our hope in a manner that is clear. and we can't do
it of ourselves. God has to give us the ability. It's impossible for us to express
it. In so doing, turn with me back
to Romans chapter 5. Romans 5, beginning in verse
1. Therefore, being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein
we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not
only so, but we glory in tribulations also. knowing that tribulation
worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope,
and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed
abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us."
Paul here, just like Peter did, first shows us that tribulations,
trials, heartaches, troubles of this world come to us. These
tribulations work patience. They cause us to learn patience. We're by nature impatient beings. We want everything right now. From the time we're an infant
until this very day, I want everything right now. I don't like waiting
for it. But the Lord sends us tribulations
to teach us, stand still and see the salvation of the Lord.
While learning patience, we gain experience. And that experience
leads us to hope. When we started school, when
I go back and look at that little boy, who was leaving his parents'
house for the first time to go to the first day of school. The fears and uncertainty that
that little boy had leaving home. That was a little tribulation
when you look back on it as an adult. You look back at that
little boy that you were, little girl that you were, and you're
like, you idiot. It was nothing. You went to school,
you went home. There's nothing to it. We learned
through that years of school that the first day of school
wasn't something to be feared, but it was a time of excitement.
We're going back. We're going to see friends we
haven't seen all summer. We're going to do things that
we don't get to do at home. We're going to have some experiences.
That's experience. And the longer we went to school,
the more sure we were of that outcome. We had a confident hope
that at the end of each day, at the end of each school year,
we were going to go home and have a good summer. Our Lord deals so very patiently
and kindly with his children. Even Abraham grew in faith. He wasn't called upon to offer
Isaac until he had learned patience. And by experience, he had learned
that the Lord is faithful to fulfill all that he has promised.
What did Abraham learn? What was his answer when Isaac
asked to give a reason for his hope? My son, God will provide
himself a lamb for a burnt offering. Just as Abraham, we will be led
through various trials so that we are taught patience to look
to Christ, gain experience, and with it have a confident hope,
a hope with a sure foundation, a hope that looks back on the
experiences and says, the Lord has provided for me, he shall
yet provide for me. Now beginning at verse 6 through
verse 11, Paul expounds on the hope that we have. Lord willing,
we'll spend just a few more minutes here and we'll find that our
hope is the same as Paul's hope, that Christ died for sinners,
that we are justified by His blood that we are reconciled
to God by His death, we are saved by His life, and we have received
the atonement. Beginning in verses 6 through
8. For when we were yet without
strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely
for a righteous man will one die. Yet peradventure for a good
man, some would even dare to die. But God commendeth His love
toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for
us. To man in his self-righteousness
and his pride, the first cause of a believer's hope is so foreign,
so alien, that no man or woman, including the redeemed elect
sinner, can understand it, even if somebody tells us about it,
unless God Himself reveals it to us. The first cause we have to hope
is that God, the Lord Jesus Christ, came into the world to save sinners. Being raised under the sound
of the gospel for most of my life, I thought everybody was
aware of the fact that all have sinned and come short of the
glory of God. It was known to me from the time
I was little. So when I was in college and
a good friend looked at me one day and said, well, you're not
a sinner, are you? I was dumbstruck. I couldn't
respond. I didn't know. It just took me
so far back that I was like, that's common knowledge. Everybody
knows this. It's not. What hope can any of us have
before the just and holy God if we stand there and think within
ourselves and believe within ourselves I am complete. I have earned your favor and
you owe me." There's no hope in that standing. The first basis of my hope, my
trust, is that God, Christ, died for the ungodly. And that is
me. And he commendeth his love toward
us. While we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Would you have a confident hope?
Do you want this confident hope, this sure foundation before God? And may God be pleased to reveal
to us that we are, that I am, nothing but sin apart from the
Lord Jesus Christ. If He's pleased to reveal that
to us, we'll justify God saying that if God beholds me apart
from my Lord and Savior, I'm guilty of sinning against Him,
not another me. I did it. I'm condemned. And you're right when you judge
me as guilty. The first firm standing we have
for our hope is at the end of verse 8. While we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. Then Paul builds upon this foundation
and he continues with much more. Christ died for us much more
than Being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from
wrath through Him. Our Lord Jesus Christ, seeing
His bride polluted in her own blood, bore our sins upon the
tree. He suffered the wrath and the
penalty that was due our sin. He laid down His life for our
sake, and He rose again for our justification. He lived a life
free from sin, and He earned a righteous standing He is the
only man that can stand before God and say, I did it. I fulfilled it all. You've got
nothing against me. He alone can say that. He earned it. He bought it for
us. He didn't have to do it for himself.
He is righteous. But for our sake, for those he
loved, he walked under the observation of the law and
upheld it. Having paid our debt, he bestowed
to us that righteousness that he owned. He didn't earn it,
but he freely, of his own will, gave it to us. So that when God
sees us in Him, He sees a people who have kept every jot and every
tittle of the law. When all about us is dark and
bleak, when the world stands against us, why do you have such
confidence and hope in Christ? Jesus Christ died for us while
we were yet sinners. Much more, He was raised again
for our justification. Our hope is founded on Christ
died for us. Much more, He bore our sins away
and was raised again, proving His sacrifice was accepted. And
the result of that acceptance, He has justified us by His blood
and we shall be saved from wrath through Him. Our hope is we are
reconciled to God. Verse 10, For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son,
much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. While we were yet enemies against
God, while we shouted out, No, God, No, God, I won't do what
you've said. No, God, I won't believe you. No, God, I won't bow before you. While we were yet doing that,
God sent his only begotten son to die for us, making peace. When our Lord took upon Himself
our sin, our guilt, our iniquity, and He hung upon that cross at
Calvary, the anger, wrath, and judgment of God fell upon Him,
and our sins were paid for in His body. The price being paid,
the wrath and anger of God put away, there is now peace between
God and men in the Lord Jesus Christ. After he shed his blood,
laid down his life, rose again for our justification, he ascended
into glory where he sat down on the right hand of the Majesty
on High. The work being accomplished,
salvation being secured, he sat down where he ever liveth to
make intercession for us. Our hope Much more, being reconciled,
we shall be saved by His life. Before He went to the cross,
our Lord prayed and left His last will and testament for us.
Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with
me where I am, that they may behold my glory, which thou hast
given me, for thou lovest me before the foundation of the
world. Hebrews 9, 15, and 16 says, for where a testament is,
there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
For a testament is of force after men are dead. Otherwise, it is
of no strength at all while the testator liveth. Our Lord laid
down His life and His testament went into effect, and He rose
again to ensure His will is completed. On the foundation of Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners. Our hope is found in he died
for us. He justified us. He reconciled
us to God. We are saved by his life in verse
11. And not only so, but we also
joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received
the atonement. Most of the time when we read
the word atonement, it involves the meaning of a covering. But
the word atonement here means restoration of the favor of God. In my sin and my unbelief, even
knowing what great things God has done for me in Christ, I
still generally think that God just barely accepts me in Christ. And sinfully, I think he almost
begrudgingly accepts me. May the Lord forgive us, me,
for having such low thoughts of his great character. Our Lord
delights to show mercy. A man in love with his bride
does not go to the marriage with hesitation or reservation, but
he joyfully brings that bride into his life, and with great
desire, he keeps her there. Our Lord calls us his bride,
and his desire is toward us. We have favor with God through
the Lord Jesus Christ. What a glorious reason we have
to hope in our Lord. We know this hope every day,
but oh, how it shines forth when we're under great trials and
tribulations. When the temporal things of the
world are fading away and I'm asked, what is your reason for
hope? May the Lord bring His wonderful
blessings toward me, to my mind. The Lord Jesus Christ, God manifested
in the flesh, died for me while I was yet a sinner. He has justified me by His blood
and reconciled me to God through His death. I am saved by his
life and his favor is upon me through the Lord Jesus Christ. That's a clear hope and a solid
foundation. May the Lord bless us all with
it. We are the same.