Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript

Sermon scripture is 1 Thessalonians 1:1-3. First Thessalonians 1, I’ll read through verse 4. Paul and Silvanus and Timothy to the church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father.

Knowing brethren, beloved, your election of God—I might mention before we dismiss the children to their Sabbath schools that the service today has been rearranged a bit in light of the possible inclement weather this evening and so communion will be upstairs before the agape love feast downstairs today. Having said that, the children may be dismissed now, the younger ones to go to their Sabbath schools, their parents desire that.

Well, I apologize again for the lack of an outline. The printer has not been repaired yet, and that’s the reason why we have no outline. Essentially what we’re going to do today is have a little introduction, and the subject of course is hope as we move through the three Christian graces or virtues: faith, love, and hope. We’ll have a little introduction, then we’ll have an overview, then we’ll look at four texts—three from the Old Testament, from the New Testament in a little bit more detail—and then have some comments about those texts and then close with some application. So that’s the idea: have an overview and then look at four texts, comments, and application.

We have obviously been spending a lot of time on 1 Thessalonians 1-4, and I think it’s important that we don’t just bounce over words that are so important to the Christian faith and so indicative of what it means to be a Christian such as grace and peace and faith and love and hope. We don’t just bounce over those assuming we all know the meaning of it.

Today’s message particularly has been important for me. I was listening this morning—my wife was listening to my sermon on thankfulness at the beginning of this series on Thessalonians—and I heard myself reading a quote by John Calvin about how God had created us essentially and redeemed us so that our hearts might continually give thanks and praise to him. And it’s a pretty convicting thought to really dwell upon that in our lives.

I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t give thanks in all things. And I find myself grumbling, it seems, a lot more this last month. I’m not sure why, but it’s sin. And it’s sin that needs correction, and it needs correction in all of our lives. I’m convinced that this afternoon’s topic rather—I’ll never get used to that—this afternoon’s topic is important for understanding part of the basis for our thanksgiving and our praise to God in all things: hope.

Hope is an essential element of the Christian life. And yet I think we could probably fairly safely say that most of us spend a lot more time thinking about faith and love and the application of those things to Christian life than hope. And yet Paul puts it in this triad with faith and love here—not only here but in various places in the scriptures: 1 Corinthians 13, introduction of the book of Colossians and other places. So he seems to link these three things up. These are the three Christian virtues.

Remember we talked about—we’re going to interweave discussions of the seven virtues into this as we go through the book of First Thessalonians—and we said that really a better word for them would be graces. All of these three elements—faith, love, and hope—are not to be found in ourselves. They’re gifts to us. They are graces in that they are gifts to us from a gracious God.

God is faithful himself and truthful. And so he extends that faithfulness to us and he causes us to have faith in his word and then to show faithfulness as an attribute of our lives. God is love. The scriptures tell us. And Romans says that he sheds that love abroad in our hearts through the Holy Spirit. And so when we read love in the New Testament, biblical love, Christian love, it’s something that doesn’t come from ourselves. It’s a gift of God. Faith is not of yourself. It’s a gift of God. And the same thing is true of hope.

In Romans 15:13, we have a wonderful verse. We’ll be coming back to it a little later, but this section kind of concludes by saying, “Now may the God of hope.” So God is identified as the God of hope. He’s the God of love. He’s the God who gives us faith. He’s the God of hope. Now, may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. So God who is a God of hope gives us hope, and it’s hope that goes from hope to hope as it were. The God of hope gives us joy and peace and we then move to more hope.

Our faith and hope are linked and beginning in our salvation. God causes that faith and hope, result in hope to abound in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. So these are essential aspects of the Christian faith. They’re also essential aspects of life itself.

Faith, as one writer said, gives cohesion to the world, comprehensibility. I think someone mentioned to me as I was reading Hebrews 11:1 a couple of weeks ago on faith that verse three is pretty important in the context as well. In Hebrews 11:1, of course, we read that famous statement that most of us are aware of: that faith is the insurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the men of old gained approval.

But verse three is very instructive in terms of faith. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible. And so faith—thank you, cold water, it’s good—faith there is linked to the concept that God has created all things, that the world is a world given to us by God and can only be understood—its every aspect on the basis of faith in his revealed word.

And so faith gives cohesion and meaning, comprehensibility to all of life. All of life is understood only through the lens of scripture. And we’ll see that hope is not really wearing rose-colored glasses. It’s wearing scripture glasses. And we’ll see that in a couple of minutes hopefully. But faith says that it gives comprehensibility in terms of all of life. It is a biblical world and life view based upon an assurance that God who is faithful gives us a sure word and a relevant word to our lives.

Love gives us the aspect of community in that cohesive world that we have. Love existed in the community of the trinity from before all time. Jesus said that God loved him before the foundation of the world. And so God in that love creates a people for his son. And in his love for us gives us a savior, Jesus Christ who comes to earth to die for our sins and then enables us—not just to love him, the first and great commandment, but to love one another.

And then of course we have definitions for that love in the scriptures, in God’s law. God’s law explains in detail what it means to love one another from his perspective and from his revelation of what reality is to us. And so as a result of God’s love we have community. So faith brings comprehensibility and cohesion; love brings community—both community with God and then with one another as well—all pictured of course by the communion table itself.

Hope brings an eschatological reference to all of this. It gives a time reference to this and it produces joy. Hope brings a sense of time orientation, a future orientation to life. Hope is essentially looking for something that isn’t here yet. Hope is a reference to time and has a reference, then a necessary reference, to eschatology.

All cultures that exist must do something with these aspects in order to have life itself. There’s some sort of meaning to life. There’s some sort of community if we’re not just simply islands unto ourselves. And there’s a purpose in all this. History moves in a progression towards something. There’s an eschatology to every culture.

The scriptures tell us—and we’ve been examining and thinking about a little bit the last few weeks—how all cultures not based upon God’s word are based on false faith, false love and false hope. And so their communities can’t stand together and they fall apart. Their worlds can’t stand together and people go mad, as it were, rejecting the only source of reality and sanity in God’s word. And they really can’t keep a time reference in place either.

We live in a day and age in which many saviors appear on the scene, and as each one falls down—if health can’t save us, then exercise will. And if exercise can’t save us, then food will. Or medicine. If that can’t save us, well, the state can save us. The state can’t save us. Well, then you know channeling can do it. All these various saviors appear in history. Why do they appear? Because each one fails. Each one fails to give hope and meaning to life. God judges them. He says this is false hope.

So hope as an eschatological element: hope is an expectant anticipation of what God has promised to bring us, and that changes our action in the present. Very important aspect of hope. It changes our action in the present.

Now, unlike worldly hope, which is just again, it’s kind of related to Jiminy Cricket faith, I suppose, that I talked about last week—wishful thinking, hoping, you know, for what we’d like to see happen—biblical hope has substance to it. It’s not the dream of a person. It’s tied to substance. And the substance that it’s tied to, as told us in the scriptures, is the substance of the person of God himself, his word, which is a covenant word to us, and the blessings and cursings of that covenant. That’s the substance really of what our hope is all about.

And we’ll go through that now in a little bit of detail.

**First, in terms of the substance of hope, biblical hope is based upon the person of God himself.**

In 1 Timothy 1:1, we read that Jesus Christ is our hope. Paul is greeting Timothy in that epistle. He says, “Greetings from Jesus who is our hope.” In Jesus himself and in God is our hope. The substance of that then is in the person of God himself.

Turn to 2 Corinthians 1:10, and we’ll see another picture of this. We’re going to be looking at a lot of scriptures this afternoon, so hopefully you’ll get real adept at moving through them in your Bible.

2 Corinthians 1:10—I’d start at verse 8: “We don’t want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which came to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves in order that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead, who delivered us from so great a peril of death, and will deliver us—he on whom we have set our hope—and he will yet deliver us. You also joining in helping us through your prayers that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed upon us through the prayers of many.”

Now we could spend the whole hour there on that. But notice that God is the one that we set our hope upon here. Paul says that to set our hope upon anything else, to set it upon ourselves or other resources, is to essentially be moved to a point of despair. And if we don’t despair of our own resources, we will never come to the place of hoping and trusting in God. And so hope ultimately finds its substance in the person of God himself—who he is.

Remember the scriptures—we pray as we pray every week that God would reveal himself to us in the scriptures. God reveals himself as a God of hope and a God who can be hoped in. Then in terms of his person, that hope of course is—as we talked about with faith—mediated and tied to the word of God.

In Romans 4:18, we have a picture of faith by Abraham in the word of God. But Romans 4:18 tells us specifically about Abraham believing in terms of Isaac—that he hoped against hope, believing God’s word. Abraham hoped for a good thing to come to him. He had expectant, joyful expectations of what God was going to do for him based upon his word. So faith is tied to a belief in God’s very word, and hope says that word is a blessing word to us.

And so Abraham hoped on the basis of God’s revealed word to him about the gift of a son to him, even though by his eyes of sight there was no hope left in him—both he and his wife were beyond the ability to have children. And so hope relies upon God and it relies upon his word. Again, it doesn’t use the eyes of sight; it uses the eyes of faith, developed by God’s word, to then hope expectantly for something that is yet future.

Matthew 12:21 is an interesting verse that helps us to see the relationship of hope to the word. We have a quote there of a section in Isaiah. Matthew 12:21, and you know, you don’t have to turn to all these if you don’t want to. If we’re going to spend a long time on a verse, I’ll let you know about that. Otherwise, you can just listen as I read them.

Matthew 12:21: “And in his name the Gentiles will hope.” That is, in Jesus’s name, the Gentiles will hope—the people outside of the covenant family of Israel. Now that’s a reference back to Isaiah 42:4, a direct quote in the New Testament. So it interprets the Old Testament for us and it helps us understand what the New Testament says as well. Very important you look at these verses back and forth.

In Isaiah 42:4, we read about the servant of God who would come, his chosen one in whom God so delights. God says that he will not be disheartened or crushed until he has established justice in the earth, and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law.

Well, now over here we read in his name will the Gentiles hope. Back in Isaiah in our Bible it says and the coastlands will wait expectantly for his law. What does that tell us? It tells us that the hope that we have in Jesus and in his name cannot be divorced from a hope in the law of God, the word of God.

And specifically in the context here, remember we talked about how New Testament quotes of Old Testament are like pointers back to the whole section. If you read that, it doesn’t mean God is cutting a little verse out from the context. Normally, what he wants you to remember is the whole section that he’s referring back to. And what he’s saying here is that hope is an expectation that the king’s law, what the king says in his name, will eventually establish justice in all the earth.

So hope isn’t just tied to somewhere off in the distant future, to the second coming. It has reference to the coastlands waiting expectantly for God’s law, the name of Jesus Christ implying the authority of Christ, his law, which has optimism tied to it in the scriptures. And so hope in the scriptures is based upon the person and work of God in Jesus Christ.

Of course, the ultimate hope is talked about as the resurrection of the Savior from the dead, and hence our resurrection. But then it has meaning and application in history in the short term as well. The history is an unfolding of these verses coming to pass. We hope in his law. That’s not a hope that’ll be disappointed because it’s focused upon the person of God. Hope is tied to his word. Hope is tied to the covenant.

Ephesians 2:12 talks about how one time we were estranged from the hope of God. Pretty common verse. You probably heard us refer to it and you probably have seen it referred to many times. It’s an important verse for various reasons. But he’s talking to Gentiles here. He says, “Remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.”

Hope is there tied to God’s covenants of promise. Now, that’s an important verse because it says that all covenants in the scriptures are not covenants of law. They’re covenants of grace and promise. Promise refers in the first sense that God has promised these things to us. These covenants are of grace and not of works. But secondly, the word promise implies that God has a good thing in mind for this relationship that he sovereignly brings us into, that he calls us into. There are promises attached to it.

And in the book of Ephesians here, Paul ties those covenants to promises and those promises to hope. And so if you cut yourself off from the covenant, you cut yourself off from the source of all hope, which are those covenant promises. And so hope is referred to in terms of the scriptures and the covenant as well.

We could go on and spend a long time on that verse and on what relates in that same section—the commonwealth of Israel. There are those, many of those in Christianity, in Christendom in America and across the world today who deny the idea of a commonwealth, a Christian commonwealth. And yet the scriptures say explicitly that’s what we’re included in now—the covenants of promise, the hope of God, fellowship with God, and then the idea of a commonwealth of covenanted people. So it’s tied to the covenant.

And in this same book, a few verses earlier in verse 18 of chapter 1, Paul writes. He prays that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints. Paul says, I want to open these things up to you. And I’m convinced that if we’re not thankful and we’re not praising God enough, it’s because we haven’t quite understood the whole, the whole big opening up picture of what God has promised to us in covenant relationship to him now and in the future. And as a result we have diminished what salvation is all about.

And so Paul says he’s going to open all those things up. And he does it by way of covenant.

Hope is a joyful expectation of what God will bring to pass. We know it will come to pass because we have faith in God’s word. That word is a covenant word that has blessings as part of that covenant. And so hope is tied to covenant blessings. And of course, the essence of all these blessings is found in the person and work of Jesus Christ and what he has ushered in.

And so Colossians 1:27 talks about Christ in us, the hope of glory. Jesus and all that he is, the basis for our hope. All the promises that are attached to the covenant come to us, not ultimately because of our obedience, but because of his obedience, and these things are showered upon us by God. And so he takes us from hope to hope.

So hope in the scriptures is not some kind of desire for something that may or may not come to pass. It is a joyful anticipation and expectation of the reality of the substance of what God has promised to his covenant people. And it has reference to time. Obviously, as we said, it certainly has reference to the final coming. It has reference to Christ’s resurrection and all that entails.

1 Corinthians 15:19 says that if we only hope in Christ now but not in the future, in the resurrection, then we’re to be pitied among all men more than all men. So certainly hope ultimately points to the final consummation of all things and to the resurrection of Christ, which is a proof of that—to our final abiding resting place with God in terms of heaven and the second coming of our Savior. Hope has reference to that, but it also has reference to the near future as well.

Let’s see. In Acts 2:26, we have a quotation from Psalm 16:9. And again, let’s just turn to Psalm 16:9, and we’ll see a reference in the Psalms. Now this is the first reference in the Psalms we’re turning to. There are many of them to come. The Psalms are replete with Old Testament words that are translated in the Septuagint correctly as hope—the same word that is translated in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 as hope.

In Psalm 16, verses 7 and following: “I will bless the Lord who has counseled me. Indeed, my mind instructs me in the night. I have set the Lord continually before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my glory rejoices. My flesh also will dwell securely, for thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol.”

And he talks. So the psalmist in Psalm 16 is referred to in the book of Acts, ultimately referring to Jesus Christ. His flesh did not undergo corruption and he was resurrected the third day. That’s the ultimate reference point to that hope that’s described in verse 8 about the flesh—”My flesh also will dwell securely.” My hope is based on this; my flesh also hopes, is how Acts 2 interprets that. There’s a hope involved with that. That hope has to do with the resurrection of Christ in the future. But it also has to do with the security of David as he wrote this in Psalm 16.

This is the same concept, and here we can see it in terms of his prayer for deliverance from his enemies, that’s repeated throughout the Psalms. So David saw a final eschatological hope coming in terms of heaven and hell, but he also saw a present hope in deliverance from physical enemies in the land. And so hope is related not just to the final consummation but to what happens in terms of the rest of our lives as well.

It’s interesting that in 1 Corinthians 9:9 and 10, there is a comment on the Old Testament law about the ox—and how the ox, when he threshes, you shall not muzzle the ox while he threshes out the grain. And 1 Corinthians 9 says that’s because the ox is supposed to plow in hope. And he says the apostle applies it to the apostles, of course. They were supposed to plow or work in hopes; they’re supposed to be getting benefits back. Hope receives benefits or substance from God in the short term as well as ultimately in the long term.

And so the hope that God calls us to as a Christian virtue, as a Christian grace, recognizes the sense of reward in the present for what has been accomplished once for all in Jesus Christ. Calvin in his various discussions of hope very much stresses the concept of reward and how important that is for the Christian. The Christian should understand the rewards that God gives us as we walk in faithfulness to the covenant. Ultimately the basis for those rewards being Christ’s work itself, of course.

So hope has a time reference to it. The theological word book of the Old Testament says the following, of one of the three or four Hebrew words that are translated hope: “But further the verse—the verse we’re talking about—this term hope reflects not only the ground of faith, the Lord himself, but the saving activity of his God. In short, that which is hoped for is not some desideratum arising from one’s imagination but in God himself in whatever he should purpose to accomplish. One is reminded that the Christian’s confidence is expressed in Romans 8:28-29. Hence the godly may confidently rest in God’s word. Those who fear thee shall see me rejoice because I have hoped in thy word.”

Not only does hope then bring relief from present problems, but also in the eschatological sense, hope in God’s help and ultimate salvation will bring to an end all distress. Now he says not only in the present but also in the future.

Unfortunately far too many Christians today see hope totally in the future, far distant future, at the second coming, and no hope of rewards in the interim as well. Yet the scriptures are replete over and over in the Old Testament and New Testament with the time reference being immediate as well as off in the distant future as well.

Rushdoony in an article on hope in James Hastings Dictionary of the Bible quoted by R.J. Rushdoony, speaking to this time reference of hope, says that the blessings that hope seeks are not limited to the future life but include all that is promised to faith in the present life as well. So whatever is promised to faith in terms of covenant faithfulness of God to his people, as a reward for our faith or understanding the verity of God’s word—whatever is promised is seen in the present as well as in the future.

And so hope has a present aspect to it as well.

Hope not only has then substance and a time aspect—both in the far future as well as in the near future. Hope also has a present effect on one’s life.

**For instance, in Acts 24:15, Paul says in the basis of his hope, he has boldness to speak.** Let’s turn to that one. Acts 24:15. This is a real interesting section of scripture. The hope is a very big element in these few chapters here. But for now, I want you to see this.

Acts 24, verses 14 and following: “This I admit to you, that according to the way which they call a sect, I do serve the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the law and that is written in the prophets.”

That’s interesting, isn’t it? Right there. I mean, Paul shows great continuity with the Old Testament here. But in any event, he goes on to say, “Having a hope in God, which these men cherish themselves, that there will certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked. In view of this—in view with his hope in the resurrection—and he says, I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before man.”

So in light of the eternal hope of the resurrection and that our lives don’t end with the end of our life, Paul says that drives him to holiness of action in the present. And so hope has a future aspect to it, but it changes the present for the person who understands and exercises biblical hope. It has that concept of reward to it, as it were.

In Acts 27:20, a couple of chapters later, we see Paul in a storm at sea, and it says that the men had almost despaired of hope. And Paul then tells these men who are in this storm at sea, he says to have courage. And so in that little section in Acts 27:20, we see that the absence of hope strips men of courage. And therefore, by implication, the presence of hope gives men courage in the light of what God and his providence has brought us into.

In 2 Corinthians 3:12, you don’t have to turn there, but in 2 Corinthians 3:12, Paul says that it is his hope in God that produces boldness of speech in him in the present. And so boldness and courage are results of hope.

And so if we find ourselves not having courage or despairing, as it were, then perhaps what God is causing us to focus on is our concept of hope and how it may be aberrant or not in view with the scriptures.

Second Thessalonians 2:16-17: “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.”

And so there, hope is linked to strengthening. Comforting and strengthening, but strength also is a present activity that is a result of an understanding of the future expectation of God’s blessings to his people. Hope produces strength in his people.

In terms of this, Paul tells the Thessalonians in the first letter to the Thessalonians that they are not to mourn as others do. Remember, he instructs them about those who die in the Lord. And he says that we should mourn about those people who die that we know in the Lord like the others do who are without hope, he says. And so hope gives us courage in times of sorrow as well. It gives us comfort and strength according to this benediction found in 2 Thessalonians. Comfort and strength and reduced mourning, as it were, are the result of hope—a firm assurance that God’s promises and blessings are being worked out to us in terms of the covenant.

Titus 2:12-14: “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men. Instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously, and godly in the present age, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Christ Jesus, who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for himself a people for his own possession, zealous for good deeds.”

And so the whole context of that—looking for the appearing of the Savior and the hope that is found in that appearing—is a call for sanctification in life. It’s a reminder to us to work in terms of obedience to God’s law.

Psalm 119:166 says, “I hope for thy salvation, O Lord, and do thy commandments.” And there it is. Our future expectation of reward from God in terms of the covenant ushered in through Christ’s work. Our hope for salvation is linked to the doing of God’s commandments. Hope is a reconstructive sort of word. In other words, it’s tied to law-keeping, and it’s tied to a positive view of history and a positive view of God’s covenant and his blessings to his people in time and in eternity.

Okay, let’s see. And of course the very verse we started with, trying to understand what hope is, tells us that hope produces patience. Patience. Because in 1 Thessalonians 1:3, that is what he is commending the Thessalonians for—is for their working in love, their toiling or working rather in faith, for their labor of love, and for their patience or endurance in hope.

If we know the future that God has planned for us and the covenant blessings in that future, then we hold up under—which is what the word in 1 Thessalonians 1:3 means—then we hold up under whatever circumstances God has brought to pass. Our work doesn’t end. We don’t despair. We don’t get slothful. We don’t stop because we know that hope is set out in front of us there. It’s kind of like that carrot out in front of whatever it is—the rabbit that’s chasing the carrot—except that carrot surely becomes ours. And in fact, in time we receive bites off of that carrot. We go from hope to hope.

And so it is the thing that keeps us moving on and gives us patience. Patience. So again, if we have a lack of patience in our lives, what do we pray for? We pray that we might understand, believe, and take to ourselves the reality of the hope of the blessings of God’s covenant. And that produces patience in our lives.

This idea that hope is something in the future that has present effect is talked about again by Rushdoony in Revolt Against Maturity. I’ll just read a couple of short quotes. He says: “Hope is not only man in the present affirming a conviction about the future. It is also the future acting on the present.”

And then he goes on to talk about socialism. And the reason why men create socialist worlds or attempt to create socialist worlds is their hope that socialism will produce salvation in terms of culture. So why do people work to socialize? Why does socialistic legislation get acted on in the next session of the Oregon legislature? Because men have a hope that will produce salvation and well-being in terms of the world. Of course it doesn’t. It’s false hope.

And so socialist societies end up judged and cursed, like Russia is today. The USSR is today, because it’s built on false hope. But it is hope. In the same way, then Rushdoony says that when postmillennial thinking has governed Christendom and the church, the result has been the progressive conquest of all things for Christ. A hope concerning the future becomes the cause of that future.

The Christian hope thus is the entrance into and the confirmation of the believer in the sovereign plan of the future by the omnipotent God. God instructs us in what the future concerns and then calls us to build for that future and to build that future. Hope has an aspect of volition to it. Hope is not magically given to us. We are exhorted in various places of the scriptures.

Acts 24:26 is one place. Let’s turn there again. I said we’d come back to that. Acts 24. Remember that whole section? What’s going on there is that Paul has had this big uproar with the Jews. They are persecuting him. There’s an argument going on at one place and he gets arrested. What he does is he sees two groups of Jews there: Pharisees and Sadducees. The Sadducees deny the resurrection. You know, you probably heard that little thing: they’re sad, you see, because they are Sadducees and deny the resurrection. And the Pharisees affirm it.

So Paul says, “I’m being put on trial here for the hope of the resurrection.” So he appeals to Rome. And so this whole section here, Acts 24:26-27—hope is a predominant element there, referring to the resurrection, but then ultimately, of course, Paul uses that to point to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Well, in Acts 24:26: “Now this is Paul. As we said earlier in the chapter, he said that because of his hope in God, in the resurrection, he then tried to achieve holiness and life. In verse 26, it’s interesting that at the same time also, he—that is Felix—was hoping that money would be given him by Paul. Felix is described here, and I don’t think it’s any coincidence that this verse is put in. It’s God’s planning to help us understand the concept of hope and how it can be misplaced in other things.

Paul is attempting to witness to Felix about the hope of the resurrection and the hope of the great blessings in Jesus Christ. But Felix, what is he hoping for in the conversations with Paul? Well, he’s got his hope set upon money, the thing that is a picture of the value of God. So he can’t get beyond that. Felix is an idolater. His hope is in riches. His hope isn’t in the God who creates riches and gives them to us as a picture of his blessings.

So hope can be misplaced. And as a result of that, the scriptures are over and over again in 1 Timothy 4:10. Let’s turn there. We’ll be looking at a lot of these. I’m sorry, 1 Timothy 4:10.

1 Timothy 4:10: “For it is for us, for this that we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.”

A couple of verses later, as a qualification of widows to be put in the church role: “Let them first learn to practice piety in regard to their own family and to make some return for their parents, for this is acceptable in the sight of the Lord. Now the one who is a widow indeed and who has been left alone has fixed her hope on God and continues in entreaties and prayers night and day.”

A requirement of widows is those who have fixed their hope on God. That means that some widows won’t have fixed their hope on God. It is a call to them to do that.

And then in chapter 6, verse 17: “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be like Felix, not to be conceited nor to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God.”

So again, hope is a volitional act—to the believer who puts his hopes, who pins his expectations not upon wealth or his own strength or anything else, but instead upon God.

1 Peter 1:13 and 1 John 3:3—more references where we’re exhorted to fix our hopes specifically on God and not on anybody else.

Now, again, just to emphasize the idea that this is not some kind of wishful thinking: in Luke 6:34, Jesus is saying that if you just loan to somebody money because you think you’re going to get your money back, that is not worth commending you for. What is to be commended for is to loan money without hope of return. The idea is that hope there specifically is used—the same Greek word—as an indication of assurity of the return on the investment that a person loans to somebody else.

Again, in Acts 16:19, where you have this slave girl who had a spirit of divination, it talks about how her owners, when she had the demon cast out of her of divination, had seen that their hope of profits had disappeared. So hope is not something that is wishful thinking. It is assured, and it’s based upon God’s covenant.

Christian hope, Finley said, then, is not the resignation of the passive sufferer so much as the fortitude of the stout-hearted soldier who looks confidently to what God has given to him.

Okay, now let’s look at three or four texts specifically and spend a little bit more time, or just, I guess, reinforcing what we’ve said here.

**First, Psalm 130.**

That was an overview. I know we covered an awful lot, but it’s good for us.

Psalm 130: “Out of the depths I have cried to thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications. If thou, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be feared. I wait for the Lord. My soul does wait, and in his word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchman for the morning, indeed, more than the watchman for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is loving-kindness, and with him is abundant redemption. And he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.”

We see that the centerpiece of all that is David’s hope in God. And then the exhortation to all of Israel putting our hope in God. Why? Because God will deliver us.

If God marks iniquities, our hope isn’t built upon what we can do. We’re sinners. If our hope is built upon ourselves, we come to despair. But our hope is based upon God. And why? Verse 7: “Hope in the Lord, for with the Lord there is loving-kindness.”

The Old Testament word hesed, the thing we’re supposed to love, to do—show acts of covenantal faithfulness one to another. God is a God of loving-kindness. And because his covenant to us is blessing, is yea and amen, and is all summed up in the person of Jesus Christ, we hope in him. Then he is a God of loving-kindness, a covenant God who sends forth covenant blessings to his people based upon the work of our Savior, and going to the cross and then in being resurrected, giving us full redemption—which is how he ends the verse. God redeems us from all iniquities, all the effects of sin and death.

Sin, iniquity, all the effects of that—is what hope removes over time. And so because of that, we are called to hope in God, to wait expectantly for what tomorrow brings. Tomorrow brings more of God’s redeeming us from the effects of iniquity and buying us into blessings, as it were, and pouring those blessings upon us.

And so if we have times of trouble, times of sadness, times of death, times of sickness, God says don’t lose hope. Keep that hope fixed on him, assured of Christ’s resurrection being the down payment, the first fruits, as it were, of all the blessings that he’s going to pour forth to us over time. So Psalm 130 applies to us.

**Psalm 71:12-21.**

“Oh God, thou hast taught me from my youth, and I will declare thy wonderful deeds. And even when I am old and gray, O God, do not forsake me until I declare thy strength to this generation, thy power to all who are to come.”

That’s a wonderful verse, by the way. We’re talking about hope. Hope perseveres, patiently waits under whatever God brings to pass. And the psalmist here prays that his years might be marked by the telling of God’s wondrous deeds to the next generation. He says, “Even when I’m old and gray, don’t forsake me until I declare thy strength to this generation, thy power to all who are to come.” What a wonderful goal for us as we move toward middle age and then old age. This should be what we’re aiming to do: to tell about God’s strength to all generations.

“For thy righteousness, O God, reaches to the heavens. Thou who hast done great things, O God, who is like thee. Thou who hast shown me many troubles and distresses wilt revive me again and wilt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Mayest thou increase my greatness and turn to comfort me. I will also praise thee with the harp for thy truth, O my God.”

So God waits. God is a God of faithfulness. I’m sorry, I began at verse 17. I should have begun a little earlier.

Verse 14: “As for me, I will hope continually and will praise thee yet more and more. My mouth shall tell of thy righteousness and of thy salvation all day long, for I do not know the number of them. I will come in with the mighty deeds of the Lord God. I will make mention of thy righteousness, thine alone.”

Then he says, “You have taught me from my youth.”

The basic thrust of this passage is that we hope in God. In times of trouble, remembering the mighty deeds of God in the past, when we have problems, we count the blessings, name them one by one, as it were—count the many blessings, see what God has done. And that gives us hope for the future, recognizing, as David said here: “He will bring me out of the pit again. He will rescue me from whatever distress I am in.”

David, the psalmist here, had a confident expectation of the blessings of God upon him.

**We’ll look at one last one: Romans 15, verses 4 and following. This is the section we read earlier, but we’ll look at a little bit more of the context now.**

Romans 15:4 and 5: “For all that was written in earlier times is written for our instruction, that through perseverance and the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus.”

So God is a God of perseverance and encouragement. And Paul here says, “May God give those things to you and may he grant this to you that you might have the same mind one to another.”

And then down in verses 12 and 13: “We read before first a quotation from Isaiah. Again, Isaiah says: ‘There shall come the root of Jesse, and he who arises to rule over the Gentiles. In him shall the Gentiles hope.’ Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”

So these things are obviously grammatically linked here. God, who is the God of hope, is the God of patience and encouragement. And hope is tied to patience and encouragement. And the end result of all that is abounding hope in our hearts that God grants to us through the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Now what’s interesting about this passage is there are some great theological truths here being talked about. He starts in that quotation we read from the book of Isaiah. He starts by quoting from Deuteronomy. He goes to the Psalter. He goes then to the prophetic literature. And then we’re talking about the New Testament. And the witness of all these things is that we hope in Jesus Christ. Great theological truths being told—that all these things play to the covenant relationship and the blessings that God has poured to us.