One Hope Through Faith

Okay, help me fill in the blank. These are all phrases with against in them. You’re back against the race against time.

Okay, this one’s a little older, so it might determine your age. Rage against the, that was a little quieter, but you still got it. Us or me against the go against the grain.

Kicking against the goads. Okay, everybody say, that’s from the Bible now. The book of Acts.

Kicking against the, sorry, J. West. Kicking against the, no, no, no, it was right. I just want everyone to say it.

Kicking against the, oh my gosh, see, we’re biblically literate too. It’s not just Baptist. Here’s another one, hope against hope.

One of these doesn’t seem to fit. Hope against hope. What in the world does that mean? Well, we’re starting a new sermon series today called One Hope.

We’re going to go through the book of Romans and there are specific places where Paul really dives into hope. We’re going to look at different aspects of hope. Today, we’re going to look at Abraham, and if you look at a little of the background of Abraham, Abraham was called by God to go to a foreign land, to take his family, and he said, and if you are faithful, you’ll be the father of many generations.

Abraham was 75 years old at that time. How many of you at 75 are thinking God’s going to call you to be the father or the mother of many nations? Abraham listened, Abraham went, and it was just 25 years later that Isaac was born. Abraham would have been, who knows math? One hundred.

Sarah was 90. That’s some faith right there. In here, Paul reminds us that this faith is what saved Abraham.

This faith is how Abraham reacted to God’s call, and this faith is what justified Abraham. Will you stand as you are able? Romans 4, 16 through 25. This is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his offspring, not only to the adherent of the law, but also to the one who shares the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all.

As it is written, I have made you a father of many nations in the presence of the God in whom you believed, who gives life to the dead and calls to existence, into existence the things that do not exist. In hope, he believed against hope that he should become the father of many nations. As he had been told, so shall your offspring be.

He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old. That wasn’t very nice, Paul. Or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb.

No unbelief made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith and he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. This is why his faith was counted to him as righteousness. But it was the words it was counted to him were not written for his sake alone, but for ours also.

It will be counted to us who believe in him, who raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our trespasses and raised for our justification. The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

You may be seated. I got done reading that and I was just like, I just gotta pause on that. There is so much powerful in here that Paul is sharing with them about Abraham and how Abraham is related to our faith in Jesus Christ.

I don’t know how many of you noticed when you walked in the door, but we have something new on the wall over here. Who did not notice that? Who was in a hurry when you came in and didn’t? That is our theme verse. This is the verse from which we derived our name.

What’s our name? In this first Ephesians 4.4, there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. There is one body and one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call. Now, when we’re talking about faith and we are talking about one hope, who is our one hope? It’s Jesus.

There is no other hope. There is no hope in our good deeds. There is no hope in the way we are just such holy people.

The hope is in Jesus. Paul said it so clearly that he did this, that we are justified by faith in him because he died for our trespasses, not just because they trumped up charges against him, but because we need Jesus. We need his grace.

We need to repent and we need to come before him and say, you are my only hope in this life, hence one hope. It reminds me of Jeremiah 29, 11, where it says, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Now, when we start talking about hope, there is something about hope that is, hope is out there.

We’ll talk later in this series about hope is unseen because we can’t see the future, but we have a future with hope because of faith in Jesus Christ, and that’s the only hope we need. I don’t know if you have ever seen this, but in, excuse me, in the 14th century, Dante Alighieri wrote a comedy called, a comedy, it’s called The Divine Comedy. Now, in theater, it’s not really a comedy as we think of comedy.

It means it goes from worst to better, and a tragedy goes from better to, oh man, you guys pick up fast. The, and this is called, in the first chapter is called Dante’s Inferno, and in the, there’s a sign over the inferno that he has, which is his vision of hell, that says, abandon all hope ye who enter here. That is the state of utter hopelessness in Dante’s mind’s eye.

That’s when hope is all run out. That’s when we have the opposite of what we have with the one hope in Jesus Christ, that we have so much through him that he has given us. One of my favorite verses on hope that I use in a lot of funerals comes from Isaiah 40, and in verse 31, it says, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.

They will mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not be faint.

Waiting on the Lord is a sense of faith, and to wait for something that has not come yet is a sense of hope in there. Now, Juergen Moltmann wrote Theology of Hope back in 1967. I don’t know if I agree with everything he says, but in here, this sounds pretty good.

He said, faith binds man to Christ. Hope sets this faith open to the comprehensive future of Christ. You get that? Faith binds us to Christ.

Hope sets us open to the comprehensive future of Christ. Hope is, therefore, the inseparable companion of faith. There is a relationship between hope and faith.

They are inseparable. Without faith, knowledge of Christ, hope becomes a utopia and remains hanging in the air. But without hope, faith falls to pieces, becoming a heart, faint-hearted, and ultimately a dead faith.

It is through faith that man finds the path to true life, but it is only hope that keeps him on that path. That’s a pretty good relationship, that you have faith, but you need hope to keep you on the path, to keep you growing, to keep you moving, to keep you always going closer to God. Now, sometimes, like if it’s our birthday, we might hope we get presents.

And, you know, I hope you’re fortunate enough to have a wife that gets you some shirts for your birthday. Now, she got these shirts out and then hung them on the hanger, and I walked in and looked in them, and they were all so wrinkled. And I went back for another week, thinking maybe if they hang there, I hope they’re not wrinkled anymore.

And it was still wrinkled. I gave it another week, and I hoped that it wasn’t wrinkled anymore, and it was still wrinkled. So, I had to get out the iron and iron the shirt this morning if I was ever gonna wear it.

So, let’s give it up for Holly. That’s what. They reluctantly clapped.

Now, sometimes, when he talks about hope being a utopia, it means that if you just have hope without faith, the faith, the hope is not in Jesus Christ, so you don’t have the faith, so you’re just hoping. And some people use terms like hoping, that the universe will draw us together. Or they use terms like, I hope the Chiefs are not gonna lose in Brazil.

And then they wake up the next day. I’m not talking about anybody specific. And in the afternoon, they go, yes, KU is up ahead of Missouri.

This is now a fun game. And that hope doesn’t work. And then that night, K-State starts getting a lead, and then they get beat.

And my hope was shattered. But at least my ultimate hope is in Jesus Christ. Because even on the same weekend, well, the Royals won, so we got that going for us.

Even on the same weekend that the Chiefs lose, the Jayhawks lose, and the Wildcats lose. And I’m showing no mercy for Missouri fans, because I don’t care. Even in that, Jesus wins.

The victory is his. He’s already won, and we have hope. And I need Jesus more than ever with those three losses to work into the season, especially when K-State is now.

One win, two losses. So much for that hope that they would win the Big 12. Hope in the universe, or the material world, versus one hope through faith.

It’s a big difference. The relationship of hope with faith brings faith alive, because we have a hope in one who has already done something amazing for us. Paul said, we believe in he who was raised from the dead, Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for trespasses and raised for our justification.

We hope against hope like Abraham, because we have the hope in our one hope against the hope that we have in our physical well-being, like this crazy stuff saying, you’re 100 years old, you’re 90 years old, and now you’re gonna start a family. Is that crazy? Very much so. I had to check with the physicians on that one.

But that kind of hope is what we have. We see this pattern of things that happen to our bodies. We see this pattern of things that happen to the world, and when we put against that hope that the world has, we put the hope we might have in ourselves to push through something, but we add this hope of Jesus in there, and that hope against this hope produces a faith that endures and carries us through and gives us strength in God.

Thomas Smale said it like this, when the prayer made in faith is not answered and the healing for which many may have sought does not come we are not to look for someone to accuse of failure in faith rather we are to remember that besides faith there is hope. Hope has to do with God’s promises that are still future and hidden. Just as faith has to do with God’s promises that are here and now, to the person who has believed for today but has not seen an answer come today there comes the call of hope.

Hope says tomorrow is also God’s. Enough has happened already to assure you that the rest is on the way. Let’s pray.

Almighty God, thank you for hope, thank you for our one hope in Jesus Christ, thank you for a faith that carries us through, a faith that lifts us up, and a faith that says you have been so faithful that we can trust in you and we can have hope, and that hope brings us joy because we know Jesus has already won the victory and we know that you will never leave us, you will never forsake us, you will never let us go, you hang on to us. Our hope is not in ourselves, our hope is not in the government, our hope is not in money or power or riches, our hope is in you, Lord. Amen.