Praise God For Our Hope

PRAISE GOD FOR OUR HOPE

I PETER 1:3-5

    Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, Who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

I.                   PRAISE TO GOD

A.   REVERENT PRAISE

1.     “BLESSED” The word is consecrated to god alone, and is completely different to the word in the Beatitudes

2.     A word means, “Adoring, Honored.”

B.   LOVING PRAISE, Father of Jesus, not merely God of Israel, or God of the universe.

C.   INTELLIGENT PRAISE, he knew what he was speaking when hen mentions Jesus and His father.

D.   GRATEFUL PRAISE, It is praise for great mercy. Pity is love to the weak; mercy is love to the undeserving. This is the climax and crown of love. This is god’s love to man, forgiving all. The greater the forgiving the greater the love.

II.                PRAISE GOD FOR OUR BRIGHT HOPE OF A GLORIOUS FUTURE

A.   OUR HOPE. Christianity does not profess to satisfy all the aspirations of the heart here. Much yearning for knowledge, for pardon, for grace is met now, but much remains as unfulfilled hopes, and for that hope, we praise God.

1.     Hope is expectant desire

2.     Living hope

a.     This, in contrast to the dead-alive surmises, vague guesses at the future, the pagans have, and above which Jews scarcely rose.

b.     This in contrast to the lying, dying hopes of this word. Hopes that die before us, or die when we die.

c.      This is a hope that makes life a life of hope. A hope that makes us pilgrims whose faces and whose feat are set towards the land of sunrise, not of sunset.

B.   OUR FUTURE

1.     A contrast to our present situation

2.     A completion of what we have already had a foretaste.

a.     A possession secure, surely awaiting us

b.     Incorruptible, no tendency in it to decay and to destruction

c.      Undefiled, not to be spoiled by defilement or pollution

d.     “Fadeth not away,” its beauty is immortal

III.             PRAISE GOD FOR THE WAY HE INSPIRES THE HOPE AND ENSURES THE FUTURE

A.   GOD HAS THAT FUTURE RESERVED. “IN HEAVEN” – IN SAFE KEEPING

B.   GOD WILL IN DUE TIME LET IT BE REVEALED

C.   GOD HAS THAT FUTURE FOR HIS BESTOWAL AS AN INHERITANCE

1.     He gives heaven to man as a gift of love – free love.

2.     Certainly not as we deserve!

3.     The heir does not buy, does not win, does not battle to secure the inheritance; he simply grow us up to the age that claims it.

IV.            HOW DOES GOD INSPIRE AND PRESERVE THE HOPE?

A.   IT IS A HOPE THAT IS BORN WITH MANS NEW BIRTH. A man is an heir, by birth of his father’s wealth; a Christian is an heir, by regeneration, of heaven.

B.   IT IS A HOPE THAT IS CONTINUED BY GOD THROUGH US.

C.    GOD SEES US AS TRUSTEE OF THE FUTURE; SO IS HE GUARDIAN OF THE HEIRS. WE ARE:

1.     Guarded by the power of God. Kept as with a garrison

2.     Guarded by the power of God through faith

a.     Singularity of heart

b.     God, who is reserving heaven for the redeemed, is by their faith training them for heaven.

    There is an old saying that is wise and good; “heaven is a prepared place for a prepared people.” “It is a good land: let us go up and possess it.”