Romans chapter 5. Romans chapter 5. Now when we
sing the last song, Craig, would you lead in prayer and go ahead
and pray and ask the Lord to bless the food at the end of
the last song, end of the service. The title of the message, and
this has just been on my mind for a few days, is Hope. That's a powerful word. There
is so much power in hope. If someone has just a glimmer
of hope, it keeps them going. It gives them a reason to get
out of bed in the morning. It gives them a reason to go
through the day. If they just have a glimmer of hope, they
may be sick. They may have a sickness that's
just taken them down. But if you let a doctor give
them a glimmer of hope, I tell you, it puts a snap in their
step. And the thought that was on my
mind, and here's the thought, here's what was on my mind, is the hope that I have, is it
real? Do I really have a real hope? Is it real? I know this. Most
everyone has some kind of hope of going to heaven when they
die. I haven't met anyone in 64 years
that said, I have no hope at all. I've had no hope at all. Everyone I've ever met, every
funeral I've ever been to, they've had some kind of hope. And the question is this, do
I have a good hope that when I die and sooner or later, they
will put me six feet under, sooner or later? Vicki and I, she was telling
me, my asthma doctor, he was just a few years older than me,
not that much older, but she said, told me the other day,
he died. It just shocked us. You know, he suddenly, suddenly
just died. I mean, I thought he really,
really helped me and my youngest son with asthma. And he died. He died. And nobody was expecting
it. And what I want to know is that,
and I want to know this. I want you to know this, and
I want to know this. If nothing else, you can listen
in to my thoughts, to what's going through my heart. But I
know you want to know this, too. Do I have a good hope that when
I die, I can stand before God and hear him say, enter in, enter
in, and not say, depart from me, I never knew you. Will the hope that I have not
make me ashamed when this is over? That's what he says in
Romans 5, 5. And hope, this hope that's of
God, This hope that is born of faith, it's a product of faith,
it really is. Where there's real genuine faith,
there's hope. It is written in 1 Corinthians
13, 13, Now abideth faith, hope, and love. The more I grow in faith in the
Lord Jesus Christ, the more I grow in hope. of the glory of God,
seeing God someday in his full glory. You know, the Lord said, no man,
he said to Moses, no man can look on my face and live. But
in Jesus Christ, we will be able to do that one day. Be able to
look God face to face. So here's what I ask. Is the hope that I have, is it
real? Is it real? Now, the hope that
I'm talking about here is a real expectation. It is a real hope, it's not a
wish. It's not a wish. And it's not just a feeling,
although it affects my feelings. You know what it is. When you
have a real hope, it affects you now. You can feel it. There
is a feeling to it. But I don't base my hope on my
feelings. I feel like I'm saved. Well, there's times I don't feel
like it. Now what? So it's not just a feeling. It's
real. It's real. And it can be validated. It can be validated by the Word
of God. And then secondly, does it meet my needs? This hope that
I have, does it really meet the needs that I have? I have a hope
of being forgiven. Can God forgive me? I have a hope of being pardoned.
I have a hope of being justified. I have a hope of being accepted
of God. And that meets my needs, that
meets the needs of this sinner. If it's a real hope, it's of
God. And then it cannot be taken away. This hope that I have in Christ
cannot be taken away. If it can be taken away, it's
not of God. It's not of God. The scriptures calls it a good
hope through grace. It can't be taken away. I didn't
do anything to get it. It was given to me by grace. And if it's given to me by grace,
I cannot lose it. I cannot lose it. Now that is
a good hope. That's a good hope. It's real,
it meets my need, and it can't be taken away. Now, what is the foundation of
a good hope? What's the foundation of it?
Well, the foundation of a good hope is the Scriptures. It's
the Word of God. The Scriptures are the foundation
for all that we believe, right? Everything that we believe we
should be able, we better be able, To open this book, the
Word of God, and put our finger, it says right here, this is why
I believe it. Why do I believe that I'm saved?
Why do I believe that? The Word of God says, whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I have called
on the name of the Lord. Come unto me, all you that labor
and heavy laden, I will give you rest. I have come to him. I have come to the Jesus Christ
of this Bible, not another." Not another Jesus. Paul said
they'll come preaching another gospel and another Jesus. A Jesus that wants to save you
if you let him is... you're going to be in trouble
when life's over. But if you come to the sovereign
Christ of God who is God, you're saved. God saved you. God's made
Himself known to you in His Son. The sovereign Christ of God,
Jesus Christ, is God. We're going to get to this in
a minute. I'm getting ahead of myself.
The Scriptures are the foundation for all that we believe. Listen
to these Scriptures. Paul, and I'm going to come back
to these Scriptures here at the end of the message. Paul speaks
in Acts 23.6, he speaks of the hope of the resurrection of the
dead. In Galatians 5.5, he speaks of
the hope of righteousness. In Colossians 1.23, he speaks
of the hope of the gospel. In Romans 5.2, here where I just
read, he speaks of the hope of the glory of God. And he also speaks of a hope
that makes not ashamed. And in 1 Thessalonians 5.8, he
speaks of the helmet of salvation as being the hope of salvation.
He said, put on the helmet of salvation which is hope. In Ephesians 1.18, he speaks
of the hope of his calling, God calling you. In 2 Thessalonians 2.16, he speaks
of a good hope through grace. In Titus 1-2, he speaks of the
hope of eternal life. And that's just a few. That's
just a few. I looked up the word hope, and
especially in the New Testament in reference to Christ and salvation.
I didn't realize it so many times, you so many times. The hope that I have, I can go
to the Word of God and say, right here, is my hope. God has given His Word. You know, God said He's honored
His Word above His name. You can take God at His Word.
You can go to the Word of God if you have a real hope. Now,
you can go to the Word of God and say, this is my hope right
here. This is the foundation of it. This is the foundation
of my hope. It's written in 1 Peter 3.15. Peter says, be ready to give
a reason of the hope that is in you. Now, if I'm gonna give
you a reason, a defense, is what that means, of the hope that's
in me, where am I gonna go? Well, this is what I think. Well,
that's worth nothing. When it comes to spiritual things,
I start to say it's worth two cents, it's not worth two cents.
In spiritual matters, what I think doesn't matter. What does the
Word of God say? The Scripture says, Thus saith
the Lord. So if we're going to give a reason
of the hope that's in us, we go to the Word of God. A good
hope is a hope that can stand the test of the Word of God. I'm saved because I accepted
Jesus Christ as my personal savior. You cannot go to the word of
God and point to that. But you know what it does say
in Ephesians chapter one? He hath made us accepted in the
beloved. God has made me accepted in the
beloved. The reason you and I receive
Christ and we receive Him by faith is because God Almighty
has accepted us in Christ. He has made us accepted in the
Lord Jesus Christ. It says in Ephesians chapter
1, The hope that I have, can it stand the test of the Word
of God? And it's not just wishful thinking.
Wishful thinking is nothing more than a delusion. That's all it
is. Now in the Word of God, that's
the foundation. The foundation. But now the object
of hope is Jesus Christ. It's a person. We are saved by
the Lord Jesus Christ. We are saved by a living, breathing,
real person. If we have a hope, we are looking
We are looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. God said in Isaiah, "...Look
unto Me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth. For I
am God, and there is none else. Look to Me." When Moses carried
that serpent on the pole, that brass serpent on the pole, what
did he cry as he walked through the midst of the people of Israel
that were bitten by those serpents? He cried one thing, Look! Salvation is to be had in a look. It's looking unto Christ. He's
the object that we look to. He's the one we look to. The
object of a believer's hope is Jesus Christ. It's not in works. Aren't you glad of that? I'm
so glad that we don't have to work for salvation because there's
no way in the world There's just no way we could do it. No way. It's not in works. It's not in
ancestry. Listen. Hope is not in face,
who I am. Hope is not in place, where I
was born. And it's not in race. It's not
in them. The Scripture says God is made
of one blood, all nations. It's not in anything else. My
hope is in Jesus Christ and Christ alone. Look over in 1 Timothy. This verse sums up our hope. It just sums it up like that.
In verse one, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment
of God our Savior, and Lord Jesus Christ, our hope, which is, has
been supplied by the translators. You can take that out. And Lord
Jesus Christ, our hope, right there. That's my hope, that's
your hope. It's in a person, it's in Jesus
Christ. It's in the fact that He's God.
Scripture says that God in 1 Timothy 3.16, look over to 1 Timothy
3.16. Well, I've already turned away from there, but look back
there. Let me find it. 1 Timothy 3.16. And without controversy, Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. Christ said, He that has seen
Me has seen the Father. It is written in Isaiah 7.14,
Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign, Behold, a virgin
shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. And over in Matthew 1.23, it
says the same thing. It says, Behold, a virgin shall
be with child, and shall bring forth a son, they shall call
his name Immanuel, which being interpreted, Matthew goes on
to say this, which being interpreted is God with us. God with us. That child that was lying in that manger,
whom the wise men came to see, is none other than the God of
heaven and earth. The God of heaven. They said,
where is he that was what? Born king. He came into this
world as king. Here's the mystery of godliness.
Listen, here's the mystery of it. The ancient of days became
an infant of days. That's the mystery of godliness.
The ancient of days became an infant of days. Listen to Isaiah
53 again. He says, Who hath believed our
report? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? This arm of the Lord is the Lord
Himself. It's the Lord Himself. The Ancient of Days became an
Infant of Days. We have God manifest in the flesh,
and we have God who became a man, who took upon Himself flesh. Our Lord said, A body hast thou
prepared me. The son is given, the child is
born. Jesus Christ is God, and yet
Jesus Christ is a man with a body, soul, and spirit. What a mystery. What a mystery. He said, Who
hath believed thy report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord
revealed? Now listen. This arm of the Lord, for he
shall grow up. He shall grow up before him as
a tender plant. He'll start out, he'll come into
this world as a baby, an infant, and he'll grow up like a tender
plant, just a tender, tender plant. The salvation that you and I
stand in need of is one that only God, as a man, can perform. That's why he's the God-man.
He is the God-man. Nobody else claims that. I know the Greeks claimed it.
I was watching a thing on Caesar last night and his parents were
born of, I forget which God he was born of, the devil. That's what they were born of. There's only one God-man. Jesus Christ. As God, we have divine perfection. As a man, we have the sacrifice
we need, the high priest we need, the blood of atonement we need.
And God Himself came into this world, took upon Himself flesh
that He might offer up Himself as a sacrifice. That's why Paul
says in Acts 20, 28, I believe it is, that we are redeemed,
he says, by the blood of God. That's what he says. Redeemed
by the blood of God. What a mystery. What a mystery. What a person. God became our
high priest. The blood of God became the atonement
for our sins. How can we not be saved if Jesus
Christ, who is God, died for us? How can we not be saved? Everyone for whom He died, I
promise you, will be saved. He's God. If anybody perished,
he failed. He failed. He can't be God and
fail. We have in Christ all that God
demands. He cannot ask any more of me
than I have in Christ. Now, let me go back and say a
few things about the Scriptures that I just read to you as the
foundation of our hope. And I'll just make brief comments
on this. In Acts 23.6, Paul spoke of the
hope of the resurrection of the dead. What is our hope of the
resurrection? Every person in this room, I'm
not going to talk about the ones that are not out here, but they're
going to do it too. But every person in this room is going to be six
feet under in a little while. Even the youngest, 70 years old,
80 years old, 90 years old, 100 years old. Now that's old for
us. But really, in the whole scheme
of things, that's nothing. That's nothing. What is that
to God? in a little while. As Job said,
in a little while I'll go the way of all flesh. I'll go the
way of all flesh. What is my hope of the resurrection?
What is my hope of coming out of that ground and having a new
body? I know to be absent from the
body, be present with the Lord, but my body's gonna be laid in
that ground and one day that body's coming out of that ground,
a new body. You know what my hope is? the
Lord Jesus Christ. You know, he said about Lazarus
to Martha and Mary, they're standing there and they're weeping, and
he said, he'll rise again. And they said, we know he will,
we know he'll rise again in the resurrection. He said, I am the
resurrection. You're looking at the resurrection.
I am already risen. You're already risen. Really? You and I need to live in the
reality of that. We are already risen in Christ. We are already seated at God's
right hand right now in Christ. I know you're sitting here. I
know we're in Spring Lake. I know you're sitting in this
building. But I also know this. In truth, you're seated with
Christ. I strive, I do, I strive more
as I get older to live in the reality of what I have in Christ
and less of this that I have to deal with every day. Whatever
happens to me every day is part of the journey home. Whatever
you're going through is part of the journey home. But I'm already risen. You're
already risen. Christ is the resurrection. When
He rose from the dead, we rose in Him. And there will come a
time that He'll bring that body, a new body, out of that grave.
And we'll be united with that new body. And then He speaks there in Galatians
5.5 of the hope of righteousness. We have a hope of righteousness
and all that it entails in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have a righteousness. God demands righteousness, I
have one. It's the Lord. He's called the Lord our righteousness.
He's my righteousness. And I have a hope that when I
stand before God, I'm going to stand before God completely righteous,
accepted, completely. And then he speaks of the hope
of the gospel there in Colossians 1.23. What is the hope of the
gospel? The hope of the gospel is a hope
of full salvation. I hope to be completely, fully
saved. Body, soul, and spirit. You know,
Job said, when he said, I'll, he said, he said, I know my Redeemer
liveth and I'm going to see him. I'm going to see him one day
and I'm going to see him with these eyes and not another's. I'm going to look at him face
to face. The hope of the gospel is a hope
of forgiveness. It's a hope of pardon. It's a
hope of justification. It's a hope of righteousness.
It covers the whole thing. Hope of acceptance? It covers
it all. Our hope is a gospel hope. It's
a good hope. It's a good hope. It's of God.
And then he says in Romans 5, 2 here, that we rejoice in hope
of the glory of God. We have a real hope, expectation,
of seeing God in His full glory. Paul said one time, we preach
as darkly, as through a glass. We preach in part, we know in
part. I'm just preaching to you in
part. And I mean, I'm telling you, it's a very little part.
It's a very little part. It's a very important part, but
it's very little. Because when we stand before
God and we see God in his full glory, And we see a new earth,
when God creates a new earth, a new heaven, a new earth, wherein
dwells righteousness, no sin. We can't even begin to grasp
what that's like. If this earth is as beautiful
as it is with sin in it, what must it be like when sin's not
in it? What must that be like? And then in Ephesians 1.18 he
speaks of the hope of His calling. That God has called us by His
grace into the Lord Jesus Christ. God has called us by His grace
out of darkness into His marvelous, and it's called marvelous light. And then in 2 Thessalonians 2.16,
Paul speaks of a good hope through grace. Our hope is given to us
by grace. By grace. And that means we can't lose
it because we didn't earn it. And then he says there in Titus
1.2, he speaks of the hope of eternal life. I'm not hoping
to live forever. in heaven. That's not what he's
speaking of. When he speaks of eternal life,
he's speaking of the quality of it. What's the quality of
life like here? Well, I know this, the older
you get, the more sick you get. That's the quality of life. Sometimes
you're having a good day and a bad day. I called my mother,
I said, how are you feeling today? She said, well, it just depends
on what day it is. She did. She's 87 years old.
She says, I never have a good day. That's why she said, I don't
ever have a good day. I just have better days than
others. Eternal life is the quality of
it. Every day is a great day. Every
day is a great day because it's the life of God in the soul.
Eternal life is the life of God. That's a great life, isn't it?
That's a great life. It's a life without sin. It's
not how long, it's the quality of it. It's the life of God in
you. The hope of eternal life is a
promise from God that we will be with Him, He will be our God,
we will be His people, and we'll be with Him forever,
enjoying His presence, enjoying His Spirit, enjoying life without
sin. Life without sin. Now, do you
have that kind of hope? Can you wake up in the morning
with that hope? Can you wake up in the morning with the hope
that a better day is coming? No matter how sick you might
feel today, no matter how bad things might seem today, you
know this, as a believer, if you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, a better day is coming. It's coming. No matter how sick
and weak I get, I was telling someone here some
time ago, he's sick, he's dying. And I said, you're almost well. You're almost well. All right.