April 26 2020

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The Point: Our rescue is found in something that is alive, imperishable, important, and kept in heaven for us.

ME: - One day, when I was skiing, I fell and trapped myself.

as a kid, I thought, just being independant was enough to make my life amazing. As a young adult, it was ‘just having enough money was enough’.

WE: - What are you looking for to rescue you?

So today, I wanted to talk about a ‘new thing’ I think God is doing in the world - building in us a new kind of hope. But it’s not brand spanking new - He put it in his word from the beginning.

GOD:

1 Peter 1:3–7 NIV

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

TURN: A LIVING HOPE THROUGH, NEVER SPOIL OR FADE. THIS INHERITANCE, READY TO BE REVEALED IN, GRIEF IN ALL KINDS OF TRIALS THESE, EVEN THOUGH REFINED BY FIRE MAY

We’ve talked about this verse before, but I want to go through it and highlight the whole concept of ‘hope’ through this verse. There’s a few things God has to say about hope:

The source of hope - a new birth through the resurrection of Jesus Christ

God’s hope is built on Him rescuing us from death itself - not from God doing all the things we ask Him to do

The reason I make this distinction is this - with our hope found in the resurrection, rather than the life we live here, our hope has already arrived. We already have a great reason to hope. Because God has already beaten death.

It’s like hoping that your team is going to win the game, but it’s a game that aired 5 years ago and you already know they win. It’s not even hope at that point, it’s confidence.

The destination of hope - an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade, kept in heaven for us

God’s Hope leads us to a life that can never die, break, or even diminish

So not only do we have a hope that we can already embrace, already live in - we have a hope that nothing in this life can touch.

It can’t be killed - it conquered death.

It can’t be spoiled - it is a LIVING hope, it’s alive

It can’t fade - it is sustained by God’s great power for eternity

So no matter what happens on earth - the ending to our stories has already been secured. And nothing here can break God’s power. But we still need to make it there! And God hasn’t left us alone there.

The journey of hope - being shielded by God’s power amidst suffering, grief and trials

God’s path to Hope is him guiding us through our suffering and trials-

And God’s plan here isn’t to remove us from all suffering - at least, not right now. He’ll do that later, when we go to heaven with Him and we have no more suffering.

God’s plan is to use his great power to guide us and sustain us through suffering. This same power that keeps our eternity safe for us in heaven stands behind us and keeps pushing us along to make sure we get it.

So we see this three part activity from God regarding hope - that he bases hope on the new life we have in Christ, he steers hope towards an eternity that is perfect and can never be broken, and he takes us there through whatever trials we can face by using His power to keep us going.

So how should we respond?

The product of hope - creating genuineness of faith that results in praise, glory and honor towards Christ

The fruit of God’s hope brings praise to Jesus

This is the end result of God’s hope. When we can look at our lives, at whatever we may face or go through, and we can say, ‘God is so good.’

They say that being a Christian is about just ignoring life. If something bad is happening, just pretend it’s not. And that’s not true. I think the real power of the Christian life is in understanding that no matter what comes our way, we know the end. We know how the story finishes. We know that we have an eternity waiting for us before God with no more fear, no more pain, no more suffering. And when that truth takes hold in you, when you really embrace it, it changes you.

YOU:

So what are we supposed to do with this information?

I always say, you can learn something by looking at a problem from another angle. TABLET VS LAPTOP

Use this time right now, rather than missing the structure that we’re used to, ask God to teach you how to place your hope and your trust in His end game. His plan for you. The bible says, our heart will be with the thing that we treasure most - so ask God to help you treasure eternity, and his life from the dead for you, above everything.

And if you haven’t ever decided to have a relationship with God, this is the foundational place to start. The understanding that, no matter what happens in life, God can and will rescue us and has a place for us that is eternally wonderful, and amazing. And that we can find great peace and joy in holding onto that tightly.

WE:

Imagine living really holding onto this belief

We can have the kind of life where suffering or trials couldn’t budge us. We are still going through them, but we’re held up by a power that’s much greater than ourselves.

We can have the kind of life that sees joy even in the hard times, because we know those hard times teach us to appreciate and praise God more - and that’s the most valuable thing

And most of all - we can have the kind of life that doesn’t stop at death. That it keeps going forever.