The Power of Hope

Our english language can seem strange at times. Have you noticed that look at a word, spelled the same way, and it has two totally different meanings. For example, I am a fan of baseball. Now when my favorite player comes out of the dugout to go to the plate to hit the ball that comes from the pitcher…grabs a bat. Wait, not this bat, but that bat.

Now my favorite baseball team is the Texas Rangers, and last year, maybe they were trying to hit with these. I don’t know.

But our language is filled with words when used it different contexts can mean different things. It depends on whether it is being used as a noun, verb, adjective, or another way.

Another word we tend to use from time to time in different ways is the word HOPE.

I hope I get that promotion. I hope my team wins the championship. I hope I get a good grade on my exam. Or I hope that it won’t rain tomorrow.

When we use the word HOPE this way, we are simply desiring an outcome that could or could not happen.

But as we look to the Scriptures, we see the word hope used, not as a possibility or happenstance, but as a promised future event.

One commentator put it this way:

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Hope

The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.

Let me read that again...

The Lexham Bible Dictionary Hope

The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future.

For the believer in Jesus Christ, we don’t just hope that we will experience God’s goodness and grace…we have confidence…we know that he desires to give us his goodness, not only now while we live in this broken world, but in the future when we shall see him as he is.

What is teh basis for this: God’s redemptive acts in the past along with our trusting human response in the present.

So our hope is not seen in a wishful desire that an event will come true, but rather we know it will come true, it’s just a matter of time.... his time.

The Apostle Peter explained this concept of the HOPE we have. If you would, open your Bibles this morning to 1 Peter 1.

As you are turning there, Peter is writing this letter to encourage believers who had encountered some persecution and wanted to remind them where they should fix their eyes and their minds.

1 Peter 1:3–12 ESV

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, 11 inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. 12 It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

Hope is possible only because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The very idea of something other than