Turn with me again back to 1
Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians. The church of Thessalonica was
located, Thessalonica was the capital city of the Roman providence,
the Roman province Macedonia. Acts 17 tells us about Paul and
Silas going and preaching there to them for the space of three
weeks. And after the space of three weeks, a riot broke out
and Paul and Silas were made to leave the city. They were
cast out of the city is what the scripture says. I would imagine
that you and I having put in three weeks worth of work in
a place like that and then being thrust out and not really seeing
very much of a response or seeing just the conflict, it would be
grievous to us. And I don't, the scripture is
not clear on whether it was to Paul and Silas or not, but the
glorious news is that sometime later, it says a great multitude
heard the gospel and the Lord raised up a church in Thessalonica. And this is who the letter is
being written to. See, it's all about the Lord's timing. It's
all about the Lord's purpose, even though we can't see the
results of what, we just look to Christ. We're not looking
for results, are we? No, I'm not. We're not looking
to see numbers increase or, no, it's all about Him. It's all
about Him. We look to Him, don't we? And in doing so, when the
Lord purposing Paul and Silas to do so, the Lord used them
to raise up a church. And so His word will not return
void. We can rest in that. Now let's read here in verse
Thessalonians chapter one. Again, it says, Paul and Silvanus
and Timotheus, unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is
in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto
you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We
give thanks to God always for you all. making mention of you
in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of love and
labor of love, 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.
Knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God, for our gospel
came not into you in word only, but also in power and in the
Holy Ghost. and in much assurance, as you
know what manner of man we were among you for your sakes." What
sweet salutations the Lord's people have one towards another.
We see Paul's love towards each of the churches
that he's writing to and what he what he's declaring unto him
and to them is the same thing we hope to be declaring tonight.
It's the finished work of Christ. But he says, Grace be unto you.
What more could we ask for but to have grace of God and to us
in peace, peace from to have peace with him? That's there
is no way we can describe how glorious that is. That Paul is
telling them, grace from God, I love you, I'm praying for you
often, I desire to come to preach to you again. When we get later
on in the book, we'll see, not tonight, Sunday, we'll see that
he wanted to come see them. He wanted to be with them. He
said, I left there thinking I would never go back. That's kind of
thrust out of the city. If I went back, I figured they'd
probably kill me, but somebody heard, the Lord saved some people.
Raised up a church. How glorious is that? And then
Paul says, I wish I could come back. But he actually says our
adversary, Satan, prevented him from doing that. He was implying
that every time he would turn, it was always a thorn in the
flesh or something where the Lord was causing the adversary
to make it seem like he was preventing Paul. And we know why. because
we have two glorious letters that you and I, that's been inspired
by the Holy Spirit that we get to glean from. And there's certainly
gleanings in this chapter we just read. There's some crumbs
from the Lord's table. I hope he lets us see tonight.
We found out later that Timothy was sent in the place of Paul. Timothy gives a good report of
the, these are our brethren. There's not a church in Thessalonia,
Thessalonica anymore that we know of, but, These were our
brethren at the time, I love that. It's people that here writing
to, they're no different than you and I. Their confession,
if we were to meet them right now and they spoke English or
we spoke, I guess it'd be Greek at the time, then we would have
the same confession then as now. They would have the same confession
now as then. Christ is all. That's what they believed. Message
hasn't changed, has it? Well, I want to show us my title
here tonight in verse 2 and 3 again. It says, We give thanks to God
always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering
without ceasing your work of faith and your labor of love
and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of
God and our Father. I've titled the message, The
Patience of Hope. Patience of Hope. Now what does
Paul mean, patience of hope? I looked it up and there's, the
word hope's in the scripture a lot, a lot. But the patience and hope are
only found in the same verse together four times throughout
scripture, and this is obviously one of them. What does he mean,
patience of hope? Patience of hope is waiting on
the Lord who promised. That's what patience of hope
is, waiting on the Lord who promised. By faith believing, that he which
begun a good work in you will perform it, believing the Lord
Jesus Christ is all. That's what patience of hope
teaches us through faith. The Lord teaches his people to
wait on the Lord. Now, I'm gonna have us turn to
Romans, but we're gonna go back and forth between Romans and
Thessalonians, so hold your place here. Romans chapter five. Hope teaches the Lord's people
to wait on the Lord. Romans 5.1 tells us this. Therefore, being justified. By faith we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access by
faith into his grace, 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. The Lord's
people rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Who is that
hope? Well, it ain't me. I'm not hoping
in me. It's the Lord Jesus Christ, isn't
it? He is our hope. He is our only hope. Before God
in this life and in eternity, he's our only hope. He's our
only rest. He's our rejoicing, as Paul's
talking about here. He's our everything. Paul said,
because of this, because of Him being our all, because of the
hope that we have, we can rejoice in tribulation. We don't rejoice
in the trial that we're, the burden that we're feeling, the
pain that we're feeling, but we can rejoice in the God, our
God, that sent the trial, looking to him, knowing he'd do with
all things well. We can rejoice in the tribulation because of
who we are looking to. We rejoice in God, the Lord Jesus
Christ. Paul says that tribulation, the
reason we can rejoice in it is we see the Lord working all things
together and revealing that it's all for our good and His glory.
And that tribulation, it brings patience, and that patience brings
experience, and that experience brings hope. What does that mean? That means by the time we get
to our deathbed, we're gonna have hope in one thing alone,
the Lord Jesus Christ. And right now, if you're a believer,
He's already your only hope, isn't He? Right this second,
I don't have to wait till I'm on my deathbed, He's all my hope.
It's all my hope in this life and before God in eternity. Hope in Christ. He says in verse
five, he said, hope, make it not ashamed, ashamed of what
ashamed of the Lord Jesus Christ ashamed of makes us ashamed of
our sin, doesn't it? Not of him. We're not ashamed
of him. tells us why, because the love of God is shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us. The love
of God is shed abroad in our, we're hoping in the Lord Jesus
Christ and his finished work, the Lord's given us a love, one
towards another and unto him. He is our hope. Now go back to the text in 1
Thessalonians and hold your place here, because we're gonna come
back to Romans four in just a moment. So what was he speaking of, the
love that shed abroad in the heart? Well, he tells us that
there's evidence of this hope, and here's the evidence. 1 Thessalonians
chapter three again, or chapter one, verse three, remembering
without ceasing your work of love, your work of faith, your
labor of love, and patience of hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said if we have hope in
Christ only in this world, we'd be of all men most miserable. But if we have hope in Christ,
We're not like all men because our hope's not just in this life,
it's in the life to come. Why? Because of what he did,
because of what he accomplished. And when he gives his spirit
by his gospel to his people, he shines forth the object of
our hope by faith, revealing Christ, and gives us love towards
him and towards each other. And that's what he's talking
about here whenever he says your work of faith. What is the work
of faith? Look to Christ. Look to, in what? In all things. Whether therefore
you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of
God. Look unto Christ. We don't look at our work, do
we, and say, well, I can tell I have faith because I'm doing
this and I'm doing that. That's not faith. That's looking
to self, isn't it? No, he's talking about the work
of faith. What is the work of faith? It
is the work of looking to Christ, which we get no glory for whatsoever
because he has to give faith to do so. He says, seek ye my
face, and therefore we seek his face. It's not that, well, I
know I'm a believer because I chose to look. No, that's a work. No, we look because we've been
given the faith to do so. And if we have this hope, it
will resonate with our work of faith and our labor of love.
This is a labor of love, your love for the gospel right now.
You had to drive a car to get here, didn't you? Now, did you
do that in order to be saved? No, no. I have to hear the good
news of what Christ did for his people. That's the gospel is
a labor of love, isn't it? Towards whom? Towards the Lord
and towards his people. That's it's a labor of love. That's what this hope does in
the Lord's people. Now Psalm 39 tells us, and now
Lord, what wait I for? What am I waiting on? My hope is in thee. It's a rhetorical
question, isn't it? I'm waiting for you. My hope
is I have to come here to hear about you. My rest is only found
in you. You're my only hope. And whenever
that's the case, and we all have the same hope together, this
love that shed abroad in our hearts by the Lord will resonate
one towards another and unto him. We no longer, we can true,
can you truly say that you love the Lord Jesus Christ? Do you
love him? If you do, it's because he's
made you do so. We see him as God. People don't love the Lord
Jesus Christ. They love baby Jesus. They love
a God that they can control. But the Lord's people, we love
him and we love one another, don't we? Why? Because we have
hope. Hope in his finished work. Hope that he accomplished everything
that he purposed to do. Because of this hope, because
of faith given, the Lord's people look to Christ in all things.
We have eternal hope. It's not a, I'll tell us this,
it's not an everlasting hope. Did we know that? No, I'm talking
about our hope in Him because it ends in sight. When we see
Him face to face, we no longer have to hope anymore. We don't
have to hope anymore. We see Him. We may lack Him,
but we'll see Him as He is. We have an expectation of that,
don't we? I have an expectation, you have
an expectation of seeing him and being made like him. Boy,
that's our only hope, isn't it? Lord, if I'm not made like you,
I have no hope before the throne of God. I've gotta be made just
like you. You're pleased with your darling
son. If I'm not just like him in every
way, if he didn't trade places with me on the cross of Calvary
and put away my sin, I've got no hope. I've got no hope. But Lord, if if he did, if he
did trade places with me and drink the dregs of that bitter
cup dry, the cup of damnation for me. Oh, I've got hope before
the throne of God. We've been made the righteousness
of God in him. If he did that for us, we have
hope, don't we? We have hope because of what
he done. Through the Lord's Spirit, God's
people have an expectation. And that expectation is that
which the righteousness of Christ has attained for them. What Christ
did on the cross of Calvary, what he attained, that's our
hope. That's our only hope. We do not have hope in things
seen naturally, meaning we don't see evidences to have hope. We
hope by faith, by faith. We believe him. We believe that
he was successful. We hope in his success. We hope
in what his righteousness attained. Hebrews 11 tells us faith is
the substance of things hope for. We have a substance to our
hope, don't we? That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the evidence of things not seen. Well, what evidence do
we have? I remember being in religion and men say, well, if
you have faith, there's going to be evidence. That's not what
he's talking about. Faith given is the evidence that
when Christ was resurrected, he was resurrected for you. Faith
has been given to us. See, the evidence is his resurrection.
Do we see that? We know that God was pleased
with his darling son because Christ was resurrected. That
is the evidence. That is the evidence. That's
what we look to is Christ alone. This isn't a wish-based supposition. This is what makes our hope different
than any other hope because our hope's in a person. It's in a
person, the person, the Lord Jesus Christ. That's what makes
our hope totally different than everybody else's. We don't assume
that he was successful. We don't assume that. We believe
it by faith. We believe it. We don't presume,
we don't think or suppose that he might have been successful.
We know it. Do you know it, that he was successful?
You know that, don't you? Why? Because he's given faith
to know that it's true, to believe it, to believe it. We didn't
compute and conclude and guess that the gospel is true. We believe
God and hope in Christ because of what he accomplished. That's
what faith does. We're not surmising, we're not
supposing that something is true without having evidence of it.
We have evidence that Christ was resurrected. That's our evidence
that God was satisfied with Christ. We have the only religion in
the whole world, we have the only true religion, you know
that. We have the only religion in the whole world that has evidence,
evidence. And it is the resurrection of
Jesus Christ. God was pleased with his darling
son. And every person that died in
him died to the law, died to sin, and was resurrected never
to die again. They were raised to new life. That's what he said, being baptized
with him, buried with him in baptism, we are resurrected in
him to walk life anew. Now faith is the substance of
things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Now I told
us we were gonna look in Romans chapter four, I wanna show us
that. I've told you what the evidence is and that's the resurrection,
but I wanna show us in Romans four. I'm gonna read two verses,
verse 24 and 25, Romans four. But for us also, to whom it shall
be imputed. He's talking about righteousness.
That's the only way righteousness is acquired is by imputation.
We don't merit it, we don't acquire it by doing, it's bestowed, it's
imputed. But for us also, to whom it shall
be imputed if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord
from the dead who was delivered for our offenses and was raised
again for our justification. That word for is because of. He was raised because of our
justification. God was satisfied with his son
and therefore resurrected his son because we were justified
in his sight. That's our evidence, isn't it?
That's our only evidence. We have no self. We have no confidence
in self. We have no hope in self and what
we do and what we think. We have confidence in what we
know, who we know is what we have confidence, not what we
know, who we know. Why? Because faith, faith believes
him. There's no evidence found in
self. Christ is our hope. Because Christ
was risen, Peter actually calls our hope a lively hope. I went,
I read just about every verse and I should have wrote it down,
but I believe it's, uh, it was either 63 times or it was a hundred
and something times that hope's written in the Bible. So I can't
remember and forgive me for that, but either way I've in reading,
well, I got hope reading every one of them though. Peter calls
it a lively hope. It's not a, A dead hope, it's
a lively hope. What does that mean? Well, the
object of our hope is alive and well seated upon the throne.
That's what it means. He says, 1 Peter 1.3, blessed
be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according
to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again into a lively hope.
Here's how, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
We're begotten into this hope. We're begotten by the resurrection
of Christ. It's a sure hope because our
hope is a person. I wanna slow down a second to
make this statement. We have a sure hope because it's
a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. But the greatest mistake that
we could make is trying to find in ourself that which only can
be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. The greatest mistake that we
can ever make is trying to find in ourself that which only can
be found in the Lord Jesus Christ. What can only be found in him?
True hope for one. But how about righteousness? How about sanctification? Can't
find that in me. Can't find that in you. We can
find it in him. That's what we hope in. We don't look to ourself
or at ourself, do we? We look unto Christ. We look
to He must be all our hope. 1 Timothy 1.1, Paul opens up the
letter to Timothy and says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by
the command of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is our hope. When is He your hope? Right now.
And right now and right, never stops being my hope. Never stops
being your hope, does He? He is the hope. of his people. Jesus Christ is our hope in life
for all time and for eternity. He is our hope before God. He's
our only hope for righteousness before God. He's our only hope
for redemption. He's our only hope for justification before
God, isn't he? We have hope beyond this life.
We have hope beyond the grave because of whom we have believed. And that we have been persuaded
that he is able. Why are we persuaded? Because
he said, be persuaded. Gives faith to do so, doesn't
he? Go back with me to Thessalonians, first Thessalonians. Look in
chapter four. Chapter four, verse 13. But 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. See, we have hope
after we shed this robe of sinful flesh. We have hope. For if we
believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them which sleep
in Jesus will God bring with him. For 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, with the trump of God, and the dead
in Christ shall rise first. Then we, which are alive and
remain, shall be called up together with them in the clouds to meet
the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with
the Lord. Is that your hope? So shall we
ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another
with these words. Do you believe that Jesus Christ
was resurrected? If you do, you have hope. You
have hope, he's coming back for his people. He did not leave his holy one
to see corruption. Every single person that was in Jesus Christ
when he died was resurrected in the Lord Jesus Christ as well.
He's gonna descend. I don't understand it, but I
believe it. It's my hope. It's my only hope
is that he's not gonna leave us utterly to ourself. Our hope
is that his glory, His glory given to him by his father will
be revealed in us. That's what he said over in John
17, isn't it? That's exactly what he said.
Father, the glory that you've given me, I've given unto them.
Can you see that right now in yourself? No. No, certainly not,
but I believe it. I believe that if he put it there,
it's there. I believe it beyond a shadow of a doubt. Why? Because
he gives faith to believe it. His glory is in his people right
now, and they've always been viewed as perfectly righteous
before the throne of God. Name another hope that's better
than that. There is none. That's my hope, and that's yours,
isn't it? Then he tells them, comfort one another with these
words. What other comfort are we gonna have in this life other
than Christ Jesus' finished work? It's sure, it's certain, it's
our hope. We've been made to know who God
is. We've seen our sin, haven't we? My hope is not that the Lord
put away every single one of my sins except one, and I have
to do something to get rid of that one. No, that's not my hope. because I can't get rid of sin
and neither can you. We have to have the blood that
purged us from our sin. Ain't that what the Lord said
when he hath by himself purged our sin? How did he do it? He
said he entered into the holy place by his own blood, having
obtained eternal redemption for us. When he entered into that
holy place once, the father said, I am well satisfied. The veil
in the temple was rent entwined from top to bottom and now we
can come in boldly to the throne of grace having obtained mercy.
Find grace to help in the time of need. Is that your hope? That's
my hope. That's all my hope. It is finished. If the Lord Jesus Christ is relying
on me for one thing, I'm eternally damned. But aren't you glad everything
required by the Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, produced and then
bestowed to his people? Isn't that glorious? He imputed
righteousness to his people. He made them sanctified by his
own blood. He justified them. His resurrection
proves that, doesn't it? It is finished. There's our hope. When he had by himself purged
our sin, he sat down. He sat down. He left nothing
undone. His work is finished. That's our hope. This hope, brethren, is not something
that can be taught. By man. We can know the right
words to say, but to have this hope from the heart is something
that the Lord has to give. It's a gift. It's a gift and
he gives it to every single one of his people. Every single one
that he died for will have this hope. They will hear this glorious
gospel and they will believe at the appointed time. They'll
be given the exact same hope. Second Thessalonians chapter
216 says now our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God, even our father,
which hath loved us and has given us everlasting consolation. And good hope through grace everlasting
consolation and good hope through grace. It's all of grace, isn't
it? That word consolation means to receive comfort by a person
after a loss. Oh, we lost everything in our
father Adam, didn't we? We gained so much more back by
the Lord Jesus Christ and his own blood. We have true consolation. We've been comforted. How does
he comfort his people? By his spirit, pointing them
to Christ, pointing them to their only hope, teaching them to be
patient, patiently hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our everlasting comfort.
We hope in Him. We bow to, what does that mean
to be patient? Patience of hope, he's talking
about. It means we bow. We're continually being made
to bow to His will. We're continually being made
to bow in His sovereignty in all things. In all things, we
are made to bow over and over, hoping in Christ, believing in
and on the Lord Jesus Christ. We know this, Hebrews 6, 19 says,
which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast,
which entereth into within the veil. Where's your anchor? Where's
my anchor? It's got to be the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one that went within the veil. He's the
only one that put away, that did business with God and put
away the sin of his people within the veil. It was behind closed,
it was open for the world to see, but the Lord, created darkness
over the place, didn't he? When he was, when Christ was
doing business with his father, we weren't allowed to see what
that was, what was going on. We don't have a, we don't understand
it. We just know what took place
by the declaration that it is finished. It is finished. Sin's
put away. Now we have an anchor of the
soul. Christ is that anchor. And he's sure and steadfast.
We have hope in our anchor. that everything required Jesus
Christ, the Lord provided for in him in in Christ. Lamentations to you remember,
Jeremiah is called the weeping prophet. He saw Jerusalem, he
saw the Israel and he and he's like me and you he had a pity
party several times. But one time in particular, he's
crying out unto the Lord and he's lamenting. And that's what
the book of lamentation is. He's weeping for the city. He's
brokenhearted. He don't see any hope, but he
says this, this I recall to mind, therefore I have hope. I've been
weeping over this city. I've been weeping over the sin
of these people, but this one thing, the Lord has brought back
to my memory and I have hope. It is of the Lord's mercies that
we are not consumed because his compassions fail not. Is that
your hope? It's of the Lord's mercies we're
not consumed because his compassion's fail not. They are new every
morning. We can't exhaust them. We can't
exhaust his compassion, his faithfulness. We can't exhaust his grace and
his mercy. Matter of fact, we've never used
up any of it, have we? No, you can't use it. It's infinite. We can't use it up at all. But
they're new every morning. Great is thy faithfulness. There's
my hope. Oh, I look at myself. I don't
see faithfulness in me. I see my prayer is not faithful.
My mind's not faithful. My heart's not faithful. Great
is thy faithfulness, Lord. Great is thy faithfulness to
your people. The Lord is my portion, saith
my soul, is what he went on to say. The Lord is my portion,
saith my soul. Therefore have I hope. The Lord's my portion. Is Christ
your portion? Oh, I hope so. If he's my portion,
I lack nothing. If he's your portion, you lack
nothing. You lack nothing. This hope is not a wishful thinking.
When I said I hope so, I hope in Him. You hope in Him. It's
not a, I'm gonna make a wish and blow out the candles kind
of hope. That ain't what we're talking about. See, the object
of our hope is not a possibility. Everything that He did is finished. His works were finished from
the foundation of the world. There's where our hope rests,
is in His work. It's His promise that we hope
in. It's His doing. It's His blood alone that we
hope in. Well, I hope I'm good enough for the Lord. No, that's
not what we hope in. I believe that he was good enough
for his father and I hope in that. We see the difference?
I hope in him. If he is our hope, if you, if you can say that he is my
hope, did you do anything to acquire him? No. No, we did nothing
to acquire. We didn't do anything to earn
favor with him. We didn't do anything to procure his affection.
There's no hope in that, is there? If I can earn his favor, I can
lose his favor. If I can be pleasing unto him
for salvation, I can be displeasing unto him in salvation. Christ
Jesus was not displeasing to his father. Christ Jesus could
not have failed. I've got to be found in him.
He did it all. He alone, he alone, the one,
the only one, the only one did it all. Ephesians 4.4 tells us
that there's one body, one spirit, even as you are called in one
hope of your calling. There's only one hope. There's
only one hope. There's only one spirit, there's
only one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and
father of all, who is above all and through all and in you all.
This one hope is past finding out, we just believe it. You
believe that there's one hope, you believe that there's one
spirit, you believe that there's one God, one faith, one baptism.
If you do, you had to have that faith to believe that. And that's
your hope, isn't it? That there is just one. and everything
necessary for the salvation of his people that one, the Lord
Jesus Christ accomplished. We just believe him. We just
hope in him. Colossians 127 says, to whom
God would make known what is the riches of the glory of the
mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of
glory. That's my hope. If Christ is
in me, I have hope and glory. I have hope beyond this veil
of time that we live in. I have eternal hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ. There's hope of the glory of
God in Christ Jesus. Do you know why? Romans 8 tells
us, for we are saved by hope. We're saved by hope. But hope
that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why does
he hope for? But if we hope for that which
we see not, then do we patient, then with patience, with patience
wait. Patience is something that we
all struggle with. There's no doubt. Everybody,
especially in the society that we live in, we want instant gratification.
You can think online businesses for next day delivery and things
like that. We want instant gratification, but to the believer, When do
you need the Lord? Right now, right now, and right
now. And how long are you going to
wait for that? Forever. Forever, we're patient waiting
for Him. We're patient in waiting according
to His will. He makes us to be patient, doesn't
He? And we might kick for a little while and want something our
way. And we were at Walmart the other day, and I saw a kid laying
on the floor, literally kicking and screaming. And I thought,
boy, that's me. That's me wanting things my way, wanting that.
And the Lord's not letting me have something, or the Lord's
not doing something. I think, I'm wanting to be God. That kid
wanted to be God, didn't he? That kid wanted to be its parent.
I want what I want, me, me. What does the Lord teach us?
Look to Christ. Don't look at yourself. Don't look at your
circumstances. Hope in what he accomplished. Patiently hope
in his finished work. Patiently hope in his promises. Patiently hope in what he said. If he begun a good work in you,
he's going to perform it. And everything that was necessary
for salvation he accomplished, it will be revealed that all
of this was put in motion by his purpose. And we're just Somebody
told me, if I believe what you believe, I'd be a puppet. Well,
I hope I'm his puppet, don't you? I wouldn't mind that at
all. If I'm his puppet, we're just
going through the motions of life being his puppets. Thank God,
we're in Christ then. I'm his, and he is mine. God's
elect have been called to patiently hope in his finished work. And in closing, turn back to
our text in 1 Thessalonians 1. I want to read those two verses
again, verse two and three. We give thanks to God always
for you making mention of you in our prayers. Remembering without
ceasing your work of faith. And your labor of love. And patience
of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God. And our
father, knowing brethren beloved, your election of God. We patiently hope in the Lord
Jesus Christ alone, patiently hoping and believing him always. David, of all the men in the
Bible that we could, you can plainly see his ups and downs.
David's a very clear cut one. You can see his, read the book
of Psalms. One time he's rejoicing and the
next time he's, overburdened, nigh on the death it would seem.
And men were trying to kill him. You remember they were going
to stone him at one point and Saul tried to kill him many times.
He was always fleeing for his life. We see grace in David's
life of what the Lord did in continually bringing him back
to the truth and not leaving him to himself. That is our hope. Lord, don't leave me to myself.
David says this, Psalm 42, why art thou cast down, O my soul?
Can you ask that question? Why are you cast down, my soul?
You know that he's seated on the throne. You know that it
is finished. Why are you cast down, my soul?
Why art thou disquieted within me? Hope thou in God, for I shall
yet praise him who is the health of my countenance and my God.
When darkness veils his lovely face, rest in his unchanging
grace. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ,
hope in him. This isn't just a wishful hope. This is a sure hope. This is
a good hope. This is a lively hope. And we
wait for it patiently with the faith that he gives to his people. Amen.