How To Have Hope
Notes
Transcript
Sometimes interesting to see how some well-known writers describe common ideas as it can give us food for thought
American poet, Emily Dickinson:
“Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul - / And sings the tunes without the words - / And never stops at all”
Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of Crime and Punishment:
“To live without hope is to cease to live.”
English author, playwright and politician, Joseph Addison:
“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
What we have discovered as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ is that He is the answer to all three.
He gives us something to do - for we are His body.
He has given us something to love - we love Him because He first loved us.
He gives us something to hope for - His return for us is our blessed hope.
Psalm 130 is a hopeful Psalm. It’s called “A song of degrees” or “A song of ascents” - one of the fifteen Psalms thought to have been sung by Jewish pilgrims going up to the temple in Jerusalem.
It starts with the Psalmist as low as he can get, then it rises throughout the Psalm to the greatest of heights. And so it’s a Psalm that teaches us what hope is and how to have it.
1. The Depths of Sin
1. The Depths of Sin
1 Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice:
Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand?
Sin brings despair
Sin brings despair
Not material, physical, but spiritual
Separated from God
29 The Lord is far from the wicked:
But he heareth the prayer of the righteous.
Adam & Eve’s sin = “The Fall”
7 Some trust in chariots, and some in horses:
But we will remember the name of the Lord our God.
8 They are brought down and fallen:
But we are risen, and stand upright.
Satan:
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
The Lord to the church at Ephesus:
5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
Things that are fallen are in a dangerous place, or are broken down and defeated. No victory or joy.
Sin brings desparation
Sin brings desparation
2 Lord, hear my voice:
Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
Plea for the Lord to hear.
Recognition that only the Lord can lift him up.
Hymn:
I tried the broken cisterns, Lord / But, ah, the waters failed / E’en as I stooped to drink, they fled / And mocked me as I wailed
Now none but Christ can satisfy! / None other name for me! / There’s love and life and lasting joy, / Lord Jesus, found in Thee!
May not have reached that point, but without Christ, you will, either in this life, when in desparation you cry out to God for His mercy and salvation, or in eternity, when you’ll cry out from the flames of Hell for a mercy He can no longer give you.
Sin brings defilement
Sin brings defilement
3 If thou, Lord, shouldest mark iniquities,
O Lord, who shall stand?
“mark” = to watch over, or, to preserve
No-one could ever stand before God if He preserved every sin we ever committed.
13 Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil,
And canst not look on iniquity:
Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously,
And holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?
I’ve mentioned before the books that God has that will be opened at the Great White Throne - books that have in them a record of every word, thought, and deed sinners have ever had or done.
And that record is permanent. When they stand before the Lord then, there’s no chance of blotting those sins out.
The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. That means that everything done without faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is offensive to God, and it goes in the books.
Church attendance without faith in Christ - goes in the books.
Prayers without faith in Christ - goes in the books.
Charitable works and generosity, done without faith in Christ - go in the books.
According to Pr 21.4, even ploughing a field without faith in Christ is sin - and it goes in the books.
And when all those faithless acts are read back, no-one will be able to stand before God.
Because sin defiles everything it touches and makes them offensive to God.
The depths of sin run deep. What hope could there be for any of us given these depths?
2. The Breadth of Mercy
2. The Breadth of Mercy
4 But there is forgiveness with thee,
That thou mayest be feared.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,
And in his word do I hope.
Availability
Availability
“But there is forgiveness with Thee...”
Forgiveness is possible - it’s available. But how?
7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace;
14 In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
When Christ went to the cross, He took my sin and yours and put His own name against them.
He who knew no sin “was made sin for us” and became the target of God’s wrath, paying in full the price of sin that we should have paid. He satisfied God’s justice - “propitiation”.
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
Forgiveness is avaiable to you tonight.
Accountability
Accountability
4 But there is forgiveness with thee,
That thou mayest be feared.
Why does the availability of forgiveness mean that God should be feared?
Simply because it means there is no excuse for anyone to end up in Hell.
If God has provided forgiveness through His Son, and that forgiveness is refused, is God not just in pouring His wrath out on those who reject His mercy and grace?
We were thinking this morning about how every individual believer is going to be rewarded for whatever they have done personally for Christ.
The same is true of the unbelievers. They are going to be condemned according to the opportunities and capability they had to be saved and yet refused.
The greater condemnation will be on those who have heard the gospel many times and had a faithful believing witness live before them time after time, and yet they still refused God’s mercy.
Availability, Accountability...
Acceptance
Acceptance
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul doth wait,
And in his word do I hope.
The Psalmist took God at His Word, and that was enough.
Many people today what some kind of confirmation of the supernatural, some humdinger of a miracle that will once and for all prove that God is real.
The truth is that not even miracles will convince those who don’t want to be convinced.
21 Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works, which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
23 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works, which have been done in thee, had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day.
Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum all saw the miracles performed by the Lord Jesus, yet the people refused to believe in Him.
Those who did believe, believe because of His words.
The Samaritans of Sychar:
41 And many more believed because of his own word; 42 And said unto the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy saying: for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world.
Will you accept Christ because you have heard His Word? Or will you insist on getting some kind of proof?
The greatest proof we could ever need has already been given, because God became flesh, lived among us, was obedient unto the death of the cross, then rose again in victory so that we could be delivered.
Will you trust in that aSaviour tonight?
The Depths of Sin
The Breadth of Mercy
3. The Heights of Hope
3. The Heights of Hope
6 My soul waiteth for the Lord
More than they that watch for the morning:
I say, more than they that watch for the morning.
Imagine a Levite serving in the tabernacle, on the night watch and waiting for the first light of dawn. At that moment he will have the privilege of offering the morning sacrifice, through which the people of Israel can enjoy God’s mercy for another day.
Imagine the anticipation as he looks out of the gate of the tabernacle toward the east, and the sky begins to brighten. He’s just waiting for the sun to peek it’s first beam over the horizon, then he’ll be able to sacrifice to God and know His mercy once again.
I think that’s perhaps what Jeremiah may have been thing about when he wrote:
22 It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness.
Every morning sacrifice was a reminder of God’s mercies freshly given.
But the Psalmist in Ps 130 says that he’s waiting for the Lord with even more anticipation than that Levite priest.
Wny?
We can wait with more anticipation because we who have believed aren’t waiting to be forgiven - we are forgive already, and we’re accepted by God already.
So we’re not waiting for a daily sacrifice. We’re not even, like David, waiting for the Lamb of God to come and tke away the sin of the world, for He’s already come.
We’re waiting for what the Bible calls “the redemption of our bodies” - we’re waiting for the Lord Jesus to come to the air and call up those who are savedto meet Him in the air.
That’s our blessed hope!
Sinner friend, if you’re not saved, you don’t have that hope.
In fact, Paul said that you’re like what we were once like:
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
But the good news is you can have hope tonight, because God’s mercy is still broad and available to you tonight.
But you must accept. You’re accountable for what you do with God’s offer of forgiveness tonight.
What will you do? Repent of your sin and accept Christ as your Saviour, and gaining this blessed hope?
Or will you do nothing and carry on, with no hope for eternity?