Hope

Good morning, welcome to NHCC. Please open your Bibles to 1 Peter 1.

What is Advent and why celebrate it?

Advent- Coming.

As we approach our celebration of Christmas, namely the incarnation of Jesus, God made man, we observe the waiting.

As bad as everything could get, there was always the promise of the prophets.

When everything seemed like God was losing His grip on creation, His faithfulness could still be trusted and a Savior would come.

We now find ourselves between the first and second coming of Jesus, our Savior, our King, our Messiah.

Peculiar position of knowing that Jesus has come, and that He will return.

We wait in the shadows of things for the substance of things. The Kingdom has come, but not yet in its fullness. The King reigns, but sin is still present.

E.M. Welcher- “For in the here and now we are sojourners in the valley of the shadow of death, plodding between the two advents of our God and King.”

Thus, as we approach our celebration of Christmas, namely the incarnation of Jesus, God made man, we observe the waiting.

The importance of observing Good Friday prior to Easter.

Allows for us to take time to observe the magnitude of Christmas.

Much that seeks our attention this Christmas season. Does Christ receive priority?

This sermon series- Increase.

Each candle represents qualities that are meant to exist in the Christian’s life.

The point of these four sermons is to see how the coming of Jesus in both His birth and His return are meant to fuel these qualities in our lives.

How does the birth of Jesus fuel, or increase, our hope, joy, peace and faith? How does the promise of Christ’s return do the same?

Camp out in the beautiful introduction of 1 Peter, where all four of these qualities can be quickly found.

This morning, our focus is hope.

Read 1 Peter 1:3-9- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Pray.

1. The listed realities must lead to the worship of God.

Blessed is a word that generally describes those who are in Christ.

Typically means happy, or fortunate, or full, or complete. Like shalom in the OT.

Example- the beatitudes.

We don’t generally attribute the idea of blessing toward God, making Him the recipient. We are normally receiving blessing.

Ephesians 1:3- Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places...

How, then, can we understand man blessing God?

After all, we cannot add anything to God, we cannot change God, in the way that God’s blessing man changes man.

Ainesis running into the street, being saved by Steve.

Bless you. What is being communicated here? Not adding anything to Steve, instead giving Steve the praise that he is due.

He averted disaster and crisis in our lives. He sidestepped doom for us.

Now consider the text. The attitude of giving God praise is shown in v. 3, but the reasoning is given in the following verses.

Praise be to God, because...

He is merciful.

Caused us to be born again.

Given us a living and thriving hope.

Raised Jesus from the dead.

Kept in heaven for us a non-diminishing inheritance.

Guarded our own salvation through our faith.

It is all God. God has caused, God has kept, God has guarded.

Bless you Father. You have averted the disaster and crisis in our lives that we didn’t even know existed. You have caused us to be saved, to be born again.

Worship must be the attitude of our hearts this Advent and Christmas season.

It is the birth of Jesus that makes all of these listed realities possible.

This is how God has chosen to act, to intervene.

He is worthy of our praise, not only when we gather for worship, but in all of our practices, celebrations and observations this December.

Does the fullness of our lives in the month of December show that we are truly grateful for what God has done on our behalf?

Or is it too filled with other things that will choke out the life of our worship?

Is worship what drives our minds and hearts at the end of this year? And if so, how do you know this to be true? What evidences can be given?

Now, let’s turn our attention specifically to the topic of hope.

2. Hope reshapes all of life.

We cannot walk away from our text without seeing the profound impact of hope on the life of a Christian.

Born again to a living hope.

Rebirth, salvation, produced hope. Hope that was not there previously.

Ephesians 2:12- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

What is this hope?

Not the way we might think of hope. I hope for a good grade. I hope I get the job. Both rooted in complete uncertainty.

Expectation.

What is expected? In what is our hope? Ultimately, God is the object of our hope and expectation- He is the doer, the mover, in our passage.

But what is He doing that Peter is specifying? He is guarding us, our inheritance, and our very salvation.

Being guarded through faith for a salvation that will one day be recognized in its fullness.

In fact, it is the very power of God, his omnipotence, unfailing, that is guarding such salvation.

Why a living hope?

Note the context- new birth- life. Resurrection- life.

To recap- We are given new life (born again) and the new life brings with it a hope that is living (rooted in new birth and resurrection).

This hope, or expectation, rests on the power of God to guard both our salvation and our promised inheritance.

Stated plainly, this life is not all there is. And what is to come will reshape our very existence. We are to be a people marked by a hope and expectation that causes us to live radically different, earthly lives as a result.

What does this new life of hope look like? How does it look different?

A life of rejoicing.

For many- a life of enduring. But notice what Peter says- In your suffering, in your trials, in your grieving, you rejoice. That is different.

Why do we rejoice? Because of our living hope and expectation.

We don’t merely endure suffering, but we thrive in the midst of it.

Find ourselves identifying well with Paul, speaking of winning souls to Christ, in 1 Corinthians 9:24-26- Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air.

Life has been reshaped by hope. Not running aimlessly or purposelessly, not beating the air, but living with purpose and drive and aim.

Now, what does all of this have to do with the incarnation of Jesus, celebrated together at Christmas?

3. The birth of Christ increases our hope.

Put just a bit differently, the birth of Jesus fuels our hope, fortifying it and building it up.

Draw our attention to 1 Peter 1:10-12- Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.

The point being made- The prophets of old were serving not their own generation, but the generations of the future.

How were they serving these coming generations? How were they serving us?

By making known the promises of God, specifically those concerning Jesus and the salvation He would bring to His people.

Our hope is rooted in these promises, fulfilled in the birth, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.

The prophets have thus served us in two ways, both of which are necessary for hope.

First, we are reminded of the planning of God.

There is something beautiful in knowing that the plan of God has never changed.

From before creation, God’s plan has always been moving in the same direction.

Reminded of Genesis 3- the offspring of the woman.

The promise of the Son.

Not only the beginning of Scripture, but also the end- Revelation 13- The book of life of the Lamb who was slain.

Before creation, the Lamb was to be born and slain.

We find our hope fortified in knowing that the plan of God has always been perfect, revealed through many prophets prior to Jesus’ birth.

Second, we are reminded of the power of God.

Nothing thwarts the plan of God.

Daniel 4:34-35- At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?”

This is why we are able to trust in what God promises.

Notice how Paul trusts the promises of God.

Romans 8:28-30- And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

In the life of believers, much of what Paul has described has already come to pass. Foreknowledge, predestination, calling, justification, all from the past.

But Paul speaks of the future event of glorification as though it has already happened. It is his hope, his expectation, that believers will be glorified, just as sure as they have been foreknown, predestined, called and justified.

This is where our hope is found, rooted, established and built up. God’s plans are perfect from before creation and nothing will thwart what He has promised.

And our life is changed because of our living and expectant hope.

Matt Chandler watching football games. Knowing the end calms the present.

This advent and Christmas season:

Reflect on how the incarnation of Jesus has fulfilled much of what God has promised.

Read, study and know well the promises of God, the plans of God and the power of God.

Allow your hope and expectation to roll over into right worship of Jesus Christ.

Worship is to be our highest priority this Christmas season.