Because He came, We have hope

Introduction

Think of how our great heros of the faith endured. Think of William Carey. He became that mission to India that the rest of the English world thought was foolish. He wrote, Though I were deserted by all and persecuted by all yet my faith set on that sure word would overcome every trial. God's work will truimph. The work to which God set His hands will infallible proper. The work to which God called us is not one in which we work with uncertainity we are not afraid of the result. christ must reign until satan has not one inch of territory God will give us the victory

This is his promise. Two young people in the US heard those words. First international missionaries from the us. They left the US thinking they were going to join carrey. he was 24 she was 23. They had been married for 14 days when they left to go join Carrey. They were denied entrance into India and had to go on to Burma. In that first year of journey first child was born and died. Within 2 years second child was born and died. In third year now in Burma a third child was born and Adanariam was put in prison because though he was American he was thought to be a British spy. He was put in conditions in the prison that was so horrible that it is hard to describe especially in polite company. Men were cramed in jail so tightly that some had to stand while others slept because they could not all lay down at the same time. There were men hanging by their thumbs and men lost their will to live and died, but Adanariam lived. Part of the reason that Adanariam continued to hope is that Ann would come and visit him in prison. She would endure the mockery and the verbal abuse of the guards to come to see Adanariam. She would smuggle him food and she would also come to encourage him. Saying to Adanariam, Do not give up Adanariam, God will give us the victory. He did not know it at the time, but the food that she was smuggling to him was here own food. She was not eating. Her milk dried up because she was not eating and she had to go through the streets at night begging women to feed her baby. One day she did not come and then another and then a week past and Adanariam's will to live was now driven by a desire to find Ann to find out what had happened to her.

Shortly afterwards through a change of political power Adanariam was released. he was going to the refugee camp where he was told that she would be. He walked past a child that at the time he didn't recogize as his own because it was so dirty. As he came to the tent where Ann lay dying Ann said the words again. Don't give up Adanariam, God will give us the victory!

How can we endure such awful things?

It is with the profound belief that our God is faithful to his promises. Though time and trials may seem to say to us that it will not happen, we have a surety from God's word that God will fulfill His promises. God is faithful to His promises.

Story of older couple with mate dying and not even remembering the other mate that they had been married to for over 50 years.

How can they endure this?

Story of loved one dying unexpectedly

How can one endure this?

The reason events like this are so painful is because we have this gut feeling that this is not the way things are suppose to be.

Heartache and death are those unwelcomed intruders that break into our lives.

During these times we are forced with the questions:

1. Will the wrongs, the injustices, and heartaches ever be made right? Will the tears ever be wiped away?

2. Is there hope beyond death?

Is this life, which is precious, but is often full of difficulty, injustice, and heartache, and is short, is this all that there is? Do we have a greater hope?

Adanairam would struggle. When Ann died, the baby died and Adanairam would stop translating the Bible he would burn all of his missionary correspondence and he moved off in an isolated area and lived in a hut and he grieved. Adanairam would write during that time, "to me God is the great unknown. I believe in Him, but I know Him not."

Mother Teresa struggled with this question

in her dairies she wrote about the hopelessness that she felt, the darkness that she felt She referred to God as the absent one at times in her dairies.

don't be too hard on her she held hundreds of infants who died in her arms

What if we feel that we can't endure at times?

Brothers and sisters it is important for us to feel the weight of this.

After feeling the weight of this we need to flee to Scripture for hope.

Read

1. We are reminded that God is a God of great mercy.

We rebelled, we spat in His face, but He had compassion.

Compare us to the prodigal son

In spite of us God has made us precious and very great promises.

Promised to make things right again

Brothers and Sisters God has given us a hope

God has promised us that all things will be made new and when this happens it will be even more glorious for once having been so bad.

Oh the precious mercy of God!!

2. Because of His great mercy which moved Him to make us precious and very great promises we have a living hope that comes to us through our Lord Jesus, because of His coming and His work.

All of God's promises find their yes in Jesus

Notice Peter says that we have a living hope and he says that this living hope comes to us how? Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

Brothers and sisters we are reminded this Christmas that the only reason that we have hope is because Christ has come and accomplished a redeeming work for us.

We have hope because Christ became flesh and dwelt among us.

We have hope because Christ has fulfilled all righteousness for His people.

We have hope because Christ bore or sins in His body on the tree.

We have hope because Christ Jesus rose victorious over sin and death and hell.

We have hope because of the victory of Christ Jesus our Lord

If not for the love of God that chose to send His Son to redeem a people we would not have hope.

There would have been no hope for Adanairam and Ann Judson and there lives would have been foolishly wasted if this love was not true

There would be no hope when you sit at the death bed of your spouse and he or she lies their unconscious and dying or you take care of your spouse of 50 years who suffers dementia and has no idea who you are.

There would be no hope when tragedy strikes and unexpectedly takes away the life of your loved one.

Notice who has this living hope. This hope is not for everyone, but it is for those who have been born again to this hope. Notice v.3 again.

This hope is for those who have been born again by the Holy Spirit of God.

This hope is for those who have gone from being those who are foolishly hoping in the world, which is all of us as we come into the world.

By God's grace there are those of us who have experienced the redeeming, regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit blew across our cold dead unbelieving hearts and have given us life in Christ.

You ask what is the evidence that one has experienced the new birth that the Bible tells us is necessary to experience the hope of the Kingdom of God, to know that hope now and to have the hope of experiencing the consumated Kingdom as Jesus' second coming?

It is faith in the cross work and resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see this new life comes to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead as we look to Christ as our only hope.

Let me ask you this moring, Are you trusting in what Our Lord Jesus, that He became flesh and dwelt among us, that He died at calvary and in His resurrection for your salvation? Has the Holy Spirit brought you to see your desperate need of Christ, to see that your sins have condemned you to hell and that your only hope to escape the wrath of God that is coming because of the sin of man is found in the salvation that is provided through Jesus Christ?

If so then this living hope that Peter is talking about is for you. If not then you stand outside of this hope.

But those hope can be yours. It can be yours if you will turn from this world, if you will turn from your sin and turn to Christ Jesus. If you will let go of the little trinkets of this world that you are building your life, your hopes and your dreams upon and you will take Christ to be your God, your Savior, and Your Lord.

3. What is this living hope? What is this hope that we have been born again to through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

This living hope which comes to us because of Jesus coming and His work allows us to have hope even while we look death in the face.

This hope is that :

Jesus receives us at our death (our Spirit)

Believers will be given eternal glorified bodies in the resurrection

We will be with the Lord in an eternal Kingdom of joy after He makes all things right.

50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory."

55 "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"

56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. ( ESV)

Look at what Peter says about this hope in v.4. (expound)

This is the hope that drove Adanairam and Ann Judson

that there is victory in Christ

that in Christ we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading

I told you earlier of the struggles that Adanairam had after the death of Ann and their third child, but as the Lord restored Adanairam he would later go on to write:

The religion of Budda and Brama and Mohammed with all other false religions will disappear, but the religion of Jesus Christ will prevade the whole world, God will give us the victory!!

This is the hope that we hold on to when our spouse of 50 years is dying and does not know who we are.

This is the hope that we hold on to when tragedy strikes in life

Our hope brothers and sisters is that God is a God of promise and He has secured His promises for His people through the sending of His Son, and His Redeeming Work, and His resurretion.

There is life, there is hope that is ours because Jesus has come.

This is a hope that will never go away. Nothing can take this hope away from us.

Nothing can ever take this hope away. Nothing can take this hope away from us.

The question this morning is this

Have you been born again to this hope?

Do you have hope?

Urge people to bind themselves to Christ.