HOPE: THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST

HOPE

Nearly 25 years ago several pastors and I gathered for a season of prayer together. After several hours we agreed that the most pressing need of our community was: HOPE.

Several initatives were birthed in those years. First, I and many others, began an after school program for teens here in Winston. As the program grew this group recognized a need for a new community center which now stands at the corner of Thompson and Grape.

A number of other things have happened. But, as pastors in this area conintue to gather for prayer we would acknowledge that the most pressing need of our community has not changed: HOPE is absolutely essential.

I recently returned from the annual meeting of the SBC which is the largest Protestant denomination in the USA with some 50,000 +/- churches. The single most important act of the week occured Tuesday, June 10 as 58 men and women and their families asked us for prayer as they begin terms as missionaries all across the globe. Perhaps 2/3 of those newly commissioned men and women (some single women, several younger couples, a few older couples as well) were shown only in profile because the places to which God has called them are dangerous and seeing their faces might endanger their security. The reason for the sending of these is simple:

The IMB of the SBC indicates that the most pressing need of the world is Jesus. Yet 59% of the world today has no meaningful access to the gospel. As the IMB website declares: Billions of people around the world are without the hope of Jesus. Lostness is the greatest problem because it's an eternal problem.

…a new birth into a living hope…

READ 1 Peter 1:1-5

Peter is one of the most recognizable characters in the NT. As one of the first to openly follow Jesus, having no idea what lay in store, he is perhaps the most relatable characters as well: speaking without thinking; impulsively taking risky behavior; demonstrating uncertainty and confusion.

Now, nearing the end of his life, living in Rome shortly after the imprisonment and death of Paul, writes to believers scattered throughout the region identified by the Roman Empire as ‘Asia.’ We know this area today as the nation of Turkey.

What is most notable about those to whom Peter writes is clearly identified in 1 Peter 1:1

1 Peter 1:1 HCSB

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To the temporary residents dispersed in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, …

and

2 Peter 1:1 HCSB

Simeon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.

(It is worth noting that these provinces were the region where Paul spent time.)

exiles disperesed abroud / temporary residents / pilgrims of the Dispersion

Whatever translation you use a couple of things need attention:

a). Jewish residents spread across the Roman empire

As a reader of Acts notices, Paul almost always began his preaching and teaching in synagogues or places where Jews were known to gather for prayer.

Many of the earliest Jesus followers were as Jewish as they came!

b). short-termers

Once one encounters Jesus as Lord and Savior perspective changes. One significant teaching of Jesus underlines this:

Matthew 5:3 ““The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

Matthew 5:10 “Those who are persecuted for righteousness are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.”

Those whose lives are being transformed by the indwelling Holy Spirit are no longer bound to the earth and the things of the world. Rather, Jesus followers live knowing that whatever is occurring in their lives is temporary. There is a coming kingdom of God that will exist for eternity.

evidence of the triune God

Temporary residents, pilgrims, exiles are made so by the call of God, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the blood of Jesus.

1 Peter 1:3–5 “Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, uncorrupted, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being protected by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

GOD: THE FOUNDATION OF HOPE

A significant reason (in my opinion) for the hopelessness that threatens to devour our communities is a loss of the knowledge of God.

You might think I’m overstating my case. After all don’t most people believe in God? In our community the answer might surprise you.

Yes, most people believe in God. How would you define God? this is where the answer gets muddled. Is God the ‘big Santa in the sky’ who works all things for good? Is God like a grandparent who spoils their grandkids or is God like a parent who seeks to limit his kids and make sure they never have any fun? Or, is God some distant entity who created all things and then walked away, leaving us to our own futility?

You see the challenge.

Peter had no doubt as to of whom he was praising.

GOD -

The Lexham Bible Dictionary God

The supreme being and Creator of the universe. Known by the personal name Yahweh.

Peter, raised as a typical, faithful Jew knew of God as the OT describes Him. Since his encounter with Jesus, Peter now affirms that Jesus, the crucified, resurrected, and ascended Son of God who sends the Holy Spirit, is God. Genuine, transformative hope requires a transcendent God, yet a God who reveals Himself, a God who actively makes Himself known to all who believe.

Peter has studied the Bible (i.e. the Old Testament - see 1 Peter 1:10ff.) Peter stood with Jesus in the event recorded in the gospels a the Transfiguration - see 2 Peter 1:16-ff).

GOD WHO SHOWS MERCY

Far too many of Christians view God as described in the OT as a vindictive, angry God.

Listen to God’s own self-definition:

Exodus 34:6–7 “Then the Lord passed in front of him and proclaimed: Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation.”

Compassionate

Gracious

Slow to anger

Rich in faithful live

Maintaining faithful love

Forgiving

He is righteous, He will judge wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. The focus on this passage, as well as multiple texts on the OT (the only Bible Peter knew) refer to this passage in Exodus when seeking to describe the nature of God.

The result of new birth: hope

One online site reveals between 2013 and 1028:

Self-help title numbers nearly tripled during the same period, from 30,897 to 85,253.

This industry was worth $10.5 billion as of 2020. 

The self-help book category is one of the fastest-growing nonfiction categories.

When people are seeking hope they often first look inward; they try changing their circumstances - a different spouse/family; a different job/community…

The only source of hope:

new birth

Hope is not something we can create out of thin air. Changing our circumstances may temporarily relieve some of the dissatisfaction many people experience, but the only long term place for hope to be found is in a moment to moment, life altering relationship with God through Jesus Christ.

Peter is writing to believers who were beginning to suffer significant persecutions and challenges. The Roman Empire was not created and sustained by some notion of multi-culturalism. The bedrock of the Roman Empire after the death of Julius Caesar was a firm and unequivocal affirmation that Caeasar with Lord.

Jesus followers could not -most would not - affirm an oath to Caeasar as Lord. to affirm Jesus as Lord was treason. Throughout the Roman empire, persecution was already beginning against any who failed to give loyalty to Caesar.

REFLECT AND RESPOND

At the beginning of preseason football camp in the summer of 1962, Coach Vince Lombardi gathered the players, who were returning after winning the previous year’s NFL Championship. As they gathered around him, he help up a football, and said, ‘Gentlemen, this is a football.’

The world around us is still mired in hopelessness. We can devise strategies, we can raise money to support all types of programs, and we can boast of all we’ve done.

None of those acts will change the hopelessness that endures.

Like the Green Bay Packers in 1962 we need to recover the fundamentals.

For us the gospel is the fundamental.

Is our relationship with Jesus as fresh and vibrant as it has been in the past?

Listen to the words of Jesus addressed to an early first century group of believers:

Revelation 2:4–5 “But I have this against you: You have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then how far you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. Otherwise, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place—unless you repent.”

REMEMBER -

Remember what God has done…Remember how God delivered your from a life bound by sin, destined to an eternity apart from Him…

REPENT -

Twice in the passage Jesus calls His own people to repentance.

Repent of our attitude that suggests there is hope in anything else but the good news of Jesus Christ!

Repent of our callous heart towards the lost and unchurched in our families and neighborhoods.

Repent of any thought that suggests God might be done with you, our church.

RETURN

The call to return is not a call to just do anything. Rather it is the call of Jesus to return to those acts of prayer, worship, Bible study, sharing the gospel in word and deed, that characterized our new life in Christ when we first came to know Him.