A Living Hope

Good Morning

If you have your Bibles please turn them to

Before we continue, lets pray for West Fork and our community.

Our Father in heaven. You have made us to be born again to a living hope. We hope in the resurrected Jesus Christ. We hope in the forgiveness of our sins. We hope that the trials we endure have meaning and purpose as you are refining our faith and shaping from one degree of glory to the next.

Father, I pray you bring this hope to our neighbors and friends. I plead, you transform their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh and lead them to yourself that they may partake of the same hope. I want to pray specifically for the teachers and staff at WestFork. Bless them as they attempt to teach their students. Bless their families and surround them with a loving community. I entreat you father to move in them by your Spirit that they may come to know you. If it is your will, move in us to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to them that they may have the same sort of hope we have in him. I pray specifically for:

Jeff Judej

Wendy Lamos

Brennan Laugen

Rhiannon Lillquest

Pam Litterer

Be with us, your church, this morning, keep these teachers on our hearts and minds, and give us opportunities to give a reason for the hope that we have. It is in the precious name of Jesus I pray these things. AMEN

Title: A Living Hope

Big Idea: We have a living hope who refines our faith through our trials that we might live with hope

Thanksgiving is over and so the Christmas season has begun. It is time where we observe certain traditions and among those is taking time to review the story of the incarnation of the Word. When the eternal Son of God was conceived within a virgin woman and was born in Bethlehem. It is a time when we renew our hope by reminding ourselves of the fulfillment of God’s promises and reminding ourselves he will fulfill them again, as we look forward with hope to the return of the King. We look forward in hope as we hold fast and endure though many various trials befall us, and we cling to this hope as we aim to walk in a manner worthy of him who saved us.

I want to pause for a second and say, there is more to Hope than I could possibly communicate this morning. It is a subject worthy of all of our attention and meditations. I want to begin identifying a significant difficulty. Hope is a word rich with meaning and implication. We use it for both simple expectations, “I hope I make it to my appointment on time,” to the more complex, “I hope he keeps his promise.” Additionally, Hope is a virtue. Virtues are habits or qualities which are recognized as helping individuals toward the good. It is not something frequently discussed in churches, at least not the ones I have attended. Last year, in my studies, I ran across this passage in 2 Peter 1:

2 Peter 1:5–9 (ESV) 5 For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, 6 and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, 7 and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.

When I read this, it struck me. He says supplement your faith with virtue. He continues on to speak of knowledge (got it), self-control (Working on it), steadfastness (trying). You get the point, the rest were things I was familiar with and have been working at by the power and counsel of the Holy Spirit, but I was unfamiliar with the concept of virtue. I should point out at this point, he says these things supplement our faith, they do not replace it, that said faith is one of the virtues, but we will get to that next week.

There are many virtues, but for the sake of this, there are 7 essential virtues. 4 Cardinal virtues: Justice, Temperance, Prudence, and Fortitude; and 3 Theological virtues: Faith, Hope, and Love. The four cardinal virtues are such that they can reasonably be cultivated by someone independent of a real faith in God through Jesus Christ. However, the 3 theological virtues cannot be. We will be talking about all three of them this month and the last two weeks we will talk about joy and peace which spring forth from these virtues rightly cultivated. Christmas Eve will be about Christ

When we talk about Hope, what are we talking about. Is it an expression of expectation? Yes, but not just that. Is it optimism, the thought that everything will work out? Yes, kind of. These two can be communicated by anyone. The hope of the Christian is not an inward action, but something he possesses. Yet it isn’t an object, but a person. With this in mind, lets read 1 Peter 1.

1 Peter 1:3-25 (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. 13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, 18 knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you 21 who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. 22 Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, 23 since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; 24 for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, 25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

We have a living hope who refines our faith through our trials that we might live with hope

I have 3 points this morning: First, A living Hope. Second, Refined through trials. Third, Living with Hope.

A living hope

Looking at verse 3, Peter begins this book with a benediction, or a prayer of blessing to God. He blesses God because in his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We we all born once, and lived in condemnation as sinners. In order to have hope, we must be born again by the Holy Spirit. We have a living hope because we were once dead and now we are alive in Christ. We have hope because Jesus was crucified, sacrificed for our sake, and died. He was buried and rose from the dead victorious. He is our living hope, it is in him we are no longer dead, but alive in Christ.

Jesus was raised from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. This inheritance is shared with all of his brothers and sisters. For this inheritance you and I are sealed by the Holy Spirit of God. While we wait, we are guarded by God’s power through our faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last days.

Our Living hope is not a feeling, it is not optimism. It is both simple and yet profound. It is a hope and yet it is certain. It is the foundation of our faith and yet it is founded upon our faith. Our hope is this: Jesus is raised and he is Lord. This has enormous implications for us.

If Jesus is raised, then he is who he claimed to be. It means he has the power to forgive sins. It means he loves me and gave himself up for me. It means he took my sin upon his shoulders and died in my place because of the riches of his glorious grace. If he is raised, then I have hope in a future resurrection, when death will be no more, the grave will no longer have power over me, sin will be done away with, and we can be with him for eternity.

If Jesus is Lord, then all things have been given to him. I am his, and everything I have is because of him. If he is Lord, who shall I fear? If he is Lord, what circumstance ought to frighten me? If he is Lord, how could I not walk in faith, with love; how could I not overflow with joy and peace?

This is not the simple hoping, like small expectations, like hoping you will get the latest beanie baby for Christmas. This is more like, as I heard illustrated this week, you are in a boat caught in a current and being driven out to sea, hope is the anchor thrown into the water which hold the boat fast regardless of the current. Hebrews 6 uses this concept too:

Hebrews 6:19–20 “19 We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, 20 where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”

Christ is our Living Hope, he is a sure and steady anchor. It is in him we hope. It is in the promise of his resurrection, that when all is said and done, he will bring many sons and daughters to glory. This hope was born of a virgin specifically to come as a lamb to the slaughter. He is the salvation of man and we have put our hope in him.

As we consider this, understand our faith is founded on a hope. It is a certain hope because God cannot lie, but regardless, it is a hope waiting for fulfillment. We cling to our anchor as our hope, not the stream. It is in Christ our Lord and his resurrection from the dead we hope. We do not hope in our circumstances, because as we have learned with great pain, they change. If we put our hope in the wrong place, we will be like ships set adrift at sea, driven and tossed by wind and waves.

Hope is a virtue we cultivate by reminding ourselves of who is our living hope. It is not by looking for our circumstances and hoping it will get better. It is looking to our living hope and recognizing that this light and momentary affliction will make way to an even greater eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.

So let us discipline ourselves to hope, to cling to our anchor, our living hope who is the Risen Christ our Lord, our King, and our God.

We have a living hope who refines our faith through our trials that we might live with hope

First, A living hope,

Second, Refined through trials

Looking at verse 6, Christians have endured trials of many kinds since the beginning. Our faith is tested and temptations are faced. Our faith is purified as we walk through the crucible of life by the power of the Holy Spirit. As a result we bring glory and praise to God. The purpose is not to destroy faith, but to refine it. Unlike gold, this sort of faith will not perish though it is refined like fire. Gold will perish, faith will only be fulfilled. Hope and faith are inseparably intertwined. Our faith is in a hope. As Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is the chain tied to the anchor of our hope. At the same time, the chain and the anchor are made of the same substance, the object of our faith.

As our faith is tested it only becomes stronger, because we rely more and more on the one in whom we have believed. As we walk by faith and as that faith is tested, Jesus teaches us how to abide in him, because he is forcing us to rely on him.

This sort of hope is already and not yet. Though we have not seen him, we love him. Though we do not now see him, we believe and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. We will ultimately obtain the outcome of our faith which is the salvation of our souls. Our hope is our faith projected into he future. We do not yet have, we have a hope in the fulfillment of the promises.

Luckily we have a God who fulfills his promises. He made promises to the humanity and to Israel which were fulfilled. We can trust that he will bring it all to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. We know because with the coming of Jesus, God fulfilled thousands of years of promises.

The men who wrote the promises and declared the prophetic word of God of the Messiah who would come, they longed to see it fulfilled. Israel who found themselves in anguish and torment in answer for their rebellion and various abominations, despaired of hope. However, they found hope in looking forward to the fulfillment of those promises. In the end these promises were written for us because they would not see them fulfilled. Even the angels look on with awe at what God has wrought through his Son.

We are grieved with various trials. We all are. The questions is whether or not we will endure these trials with hope, or not. We all endure life in a world absolutely soaked in sin and its effects. For those who are Christians we live here not as citizens, but as strangers. We belong to a kingdom which is coming. We live in conflict with the temporary ruler of this world, who prowls around like roaring lion seeking to whom he may devour. We will endure trial and suffering. Will we remain steadfast, clinging to the hope of the one who died for us? Will we cling by faith to that anchor that we may remain steady and sure as our faith grows stronger and stronger?

Will we remember and remind ourselves and our brothers of the fulfillment of God’s promises. God cannot lie. If he makes a promise, he must fulfill it. We have been told he will not leave, nor will he forsake us. Jesus said this, “The one who conquers will be clothed thus in white garments, and I will never blot his name out of the book of life. I will confess his name before my Father and before his angels.”

So, the question is will we walk as conquerors in the mist of our various difficult trials? Will we walk in hope knowing the testing of our faith is the refining of our faith? Will we remember our God fulfills his promises and we can trust him. The prophets looked forward to the coming of Jesus, and when he came it meant great joy to the world because it finally brought hope.

We have a living hope who refines our faith through our trials that we might live with hope

First, A living hope. Second, Refined through trials

Third, Living with Hope

This last section tells us to se our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. If we do this it will have effects. If our hope is in Jesus, it won’t return to the feeble hopes of the world. We won’t want to be pulled back into conformity with our former ignorance. Instead, in our conduct we should be holy as he who called us us holy. It means walking in the fear of the Lord, because he is just, even knowing we have already been ransomed by the atoning death of Christ, an unblemished sacrificial lamb.

Christ Jesus was God’s plan from the before the foundation of the world, but was made manifest at the coming of Jesus, when he took on human flesh that he might die in our place. He died for our sake that our faith in him our faith and hope would be in God. Peter says our obedience to the truth has purified our souls. Based upon what we have covered so far, I assume he means obedience to the gospel. This along with the his statement in verse 14 telling us not to be conformed to the passions of our former ignorance makes me think of repentance.

This word carries a lot of meaning, some of which is not strictly biblical. The word means to change you mind. For those who put their faith in Jesus, the first step of faith is to let go of our former self. He didn’t understand who God is, he was dead in his sin, he was condemned. Now, in Christ Jesus we become a new man. So, by faith we are renewed in the spirit of our minds, and put on the new self being created in the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. This is why both Jesus speaks of repenting and believing in the same sentence in mark 1:15.

That said, I do not want you to think you must be perfect to come to Jesus. Instead, we come to him in our filthy rags and he makes us clean. However, we cannot then put those rags back on, we leave them. That is repentance. It is letting go of the former self, not to earn salvation, but because by faith we have accepted the gift of a new life in Christ.

All of this result in our love for one another and remembering the destination. It is living with hope and allowing the Spirit to shape us with the end in mind. We are purified by the living and abiding word. We endure, we conquer together, the spirit renews our hope because we are surrounded by our brothers and sisters and were proceeded by a great cloud of witnesses. Now we bear the torch of the faith once for all delivered to the saints that we might declare the hope that we have to the coming generations to the glory, honor, and praise of Christ our Lord and king.

If we are going to live with hope, we cannot return the the hopeless of our former ignorance.

True hope fights against two temptations,

First, Presumption: The carnal dream, the one Disney is always teaching us to chase. This temptation is to think we can do it on our own, that we don’t really need God or his Son, “I can achieve everything I desire on my own.” The truth is, there is no fulfilled desire, or achievement that will fill your life with the kind of meaning for which you long. True hope is placed on something external, the only one capable of such trust is Jesus.

Second, Despair: The cry of one who thinks he is utterly helpless and alone. This is a temptation to thing God is not there or that he doesn’t care. To this person, hope seems either like a fable, a cute story, or an evil. Nietzsche wrote this about hope, “Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.” That is despair. Sadly, his life would ultimately reflect that despair. We see this in people who numb themselves with pleasure, or substance. It takes shape in the ones who shut out their emotions and those who make themselves busy so they don’t have to think. True hope reaches into the future with faith. It is not based upon current circumstances.

What about you? Are you living with hope? It is Christmas a time that is presented as one of cheer and joy, but maybe you lost loved ones and you can’t celebrate with them anymore. Maybe you are just not in a good place at the moment. Begin to live with hope.

In Conclusion

Peter tells in 2 Peter 1 to supplement our faith with virtue. Hope is one of the top 3 virtues to begin to cultivate in your heart and your life. How do you do that?

First, you need a living hope. If you have not put your faith in Jesus, he is the hope of all the earth. He came to seek and save that which was lost. He came that you might have life, a hope, and a future. If this is you, take a moment and just pray expressing your faith and your desire for Jesus to save you. I am going to pray in just a second, as an example, just pray along side me. Lets pray:

Lord Jesus, you are my living hope. I am a sinner guilty before you, without hope and without God in the world. My Lord Jesus, save me. I believe you were born of a virgin in fulfillment of God’s promises. I believe you lived the life I should have lived, and died the death I deserve. I believe you were buried and rose from the grave. I believer you ascended to heaven and sit at the right hand of God. I believe when you return it will be the fulfillment of my hope and you will grant me eternal life. Jesus, teach me, guide me by your Spirit. Jesus, I love you, it is in your most precious name I pray, Amen.

Second, You will be grieved by trials. There are few things I can guarantee more than this. Our church has been through a lot, we have each been through a lot. It will continue. I encourage you to continue to trust in Jesus. He is a solid anchor who will keep you steady in the fiercest of currents. He will hold you fast and in him you will be a conquerer. Don’t allow the concerns of the world to choke the life from your faith, but cling to your living hope.

Third, Live with hope. Hope is a supplement to your faith. It will strengthen it and your faith will strengthen your hope, like an unending feedback loop. This hope will draw you ever closer to Christ. As you abide in him, you will discover that in him you can do anything, you can endure anything, you will begin to look more and more like him as he by his Spirit shapes you in his likeness.

If you have placed your faith in Jesus, you already have everything you need. When we walk in obedience it is not to earn more from Jesus, but it is a reflection of the faith and hope we have in him.

Lets Pray:

Our Father, I pray you teach us to anchor our selves to the living hope that is Jesus Christ. I pray you strengthen us as you have already brought us through a trial. I pray we walk as a display of the hope that we have. I pray you glorify yourself in your people who are called by your name.

Communion

We have a living hope who dwells at the right hand of God. His body was broken and his blood was shed for you and for me. At this time we are going to take communion together. This is a time to remember with deep spiritual significance the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as an atonement for our sin.

For anyone here who is not certain he has put his faith and trust in Jesus Christ for his Hope of salvation. I ask that you refrain from participating. This is not intended to exclude anyone, if at any point, you put your faith in him, please join us. We would love to celebrate your first communion with you.

I am going to pray briefly, then we will all collect the elements together then return to our seats.

PRAY

Mark 14:22–25 ESV

22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many. 25 Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God.”