Sermon Tone Analysis

Hope, what do you have hope for?

Hope is a good thing, you can find it as a link between faith and love (1Cor13:13) and it is well worth dwelling on (Php4:4-9).

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Good to dwell on hope, for it is morally excellent

Hope is a key found between faith and love

Hope is to be steadfast; something more than thought, it is action

Hope is not just in something, it is in someone, Jesus Christ!

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(story/illustration) - as a child asked what you have hope for; then as you grow does hope change?

First, though maybe better bring in our focus passage for this series

Think about this for a minute, in HCSB it says moral excellence, not just excellence but moral excellence.

Is that knowing the right things to do and doing it?

so if there is any moral excellence in these things we are to praise.

Not only that we are to apply (dwell on these things).

and the results are the peace of God will be with you.

So the right thing for us today is to dwell on, consider, ponder, meditate upon hope!

As I mentioned hope is sandwiched in between faith and love.

Not only are we to have hope, we are to have steadfastness of hope

So, our hope is not just in something, it is in someone, our Lord Jesus Christ, and we know we cannot go wrong dwelling on the object of our hope today.

We will be looking at hope defined, hope described, hope developed and what hope demonstrated looks like.

Hope Defined

Hope, we all have hope in things and for things.

Hope makes things worth living doesn’t it?

This morning we are looking at hope, so first may we define hope.

According to Strong’s Greek Concordance:

elpis: expectation, hope

Original Word: ἐλπίς, ίδος, ἡ

Part of Speech: Noun, Feminine

Transliteration: elpis

Phonetic Spelling: (el-pece')

Definition: expectation, hope

Usage: hope, expectation, trust, confidence

According to Vine’s Dictionary: it is “favorable and confident expectation”

Complete word Study dictionary “desire of some good with some expectation of obtaining it.”

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Hope defined: Confident expectation, trust, of some good to come

Hope defined in the scripture (Rom8:24-25; Heb11:1; 1Pt1:21)

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You don’t have expectation of obtaining something if you already have it, do you?

So hope defined has something to do with some unseen and future item that you have confident expectation, trust in receiving.

Now as it shows in some scripture.

Hope is not a wish, like you wish for something for Christmas or your birthday.

It is a strong expectation, confidence that is place in God according to the Bridgeway Bible Dictionary

Hope in a short definition is confident expectation to receive something that is unseen at this time.

We are dwelling on things as simple Christians and as we do when it comes to hope you will see that it is inseparable from faith.

Now how about we have hope in this and see hope defined here.

Not a hope you may receive something, but a confident expectation to receive it!

What does our Christian hope rest in? - there could be several things, let me show you a few.

Hope Described

Now we can know because of (1Tim1:1) that Jesus Christ is our hope, but there is more that we can find in the scripture that helps describe hope.

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Hope of righteousness (Gal5:5; Rom5:1; Gal5:4)

Hope based on our hope in Christ (Php3:7-11)

Hope in reward to be given (2Tim4:6-8)

Hope in the revelation of Christ (1Cor1:7)

Hope in Christs return (Tit2:11-13)

More hope in revelation and revealing (1Pt1:7 1Pt1:13; 1Pt4:13 Rom8:19; Col3:4

Hope of the resurrection (Rom8:23-24; Act23:6)

Hope in God (Act24:15; 1Cor15:42-44, 50-54)

Hope as we eagerly await (Php4:20-21)

Hope of our future home Heb11:10, 16; Heb13:14; 2Pt3:13-14)

Whew, is that something to give, display and describe hope?

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May I start with - Hope of righteousness.

Paul explains, writes that it is we are waiting for the hope of righteousness

That comes from the justification we have being in Christ Jesus because of our faith.

Now, keeping in context with the Gal5:5 passage, in context this hope has to do with with the freedom we have in Christ Jesus

Freedom that we can give up and be severed from Christ

Because our justification only comes through faith or by faith in Christ jesus in which we have our hope in.

Paul in Galatians and in Romans is speaking of the righteousness we have, the justification we have being in Christ Jesus, knowing that Jesus has taking on our penalty for sin, not that we are not guilty, but he took on the penalty on our behalf.

So our hope is based on the hope that we have in Christ Jesus.

Count everything as loss because of our hope, our faith, our righteousness given by God because of our faith so that we may know the power of His resurrection and the hope of our resurrection from the dead.

Now this is confident expectation!

This is hope!

So, we have hope defined, we have hope described in the scriptures, hope in the righteousness of God, now how about hope in the revelation of Jesus Christ?

Revelation when Christ appears, when He returns for His church

When He returns is HE going to find us eagerly awaiting?

We know God’s grace appeared in Christ making salvation available to us, because of our faith, we know we have hope, hope of the appearing of the glory of our Great God and Savior.

when that happens, in that time we can know:

Our faith will be proved, our hope will be fulfilled and the result will be praise, glory and honor when He returns.

So, hold onto your hope, your confident expectation of good to come, that hope being the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So as we wait, as we hope, in the interim may we cleave to our hope knowing there will be some suffering we are going to share in, so keep on rejoicing, for it will be worth it.

And I can’t stay out of COlossians

You will be revealed with Him in glory.

The glory of heaven, the glory of His presence, the glory of eternity with Him!

So hope Jesus, hope in righteousness, hope in revelation of Jesus Christ, how about hope of the resurrection?

So, was we eagerly await, do we have hope, confident expectation of good to come, expectation, of the final revelation, redemption of our bodies?

The hope of the resurrection

and our hope in God and the resurrection

Where we will put on immortality

Then a few verses later

I know it maybe a long passage, but we are talking about hope in our everlasting, eternal victory.

Not by anything we have done, but by what He did on our behalf.

By His power!

Whew, may we continue to have confident expectation, hope, that we will be raised up on that last day and spend eternity with Him.

More hope, hope of a new creation.

A new creation, a new city where God is the builder

A better country, a heavenly one that God prepared for us

We look forward to the city to come

A better country, a better city, a lasting city, a heavenly home where the righteousness of God dwells.

How much does your hope, your confident expectation of good things to come impact your life today?

May we now consider how we can further develop hope

Hope Developed

We develop our good hope that has been defined, described through grace.

Grace that is freely given to us by faith.

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Developed by Grace (2The2:16; Rom5:1-2)