Radiant with Hope

The weather we're in the middle of a global pandemic war some kind of personal crisis where we go to find refuge safety or hope the world offers a number of short-term solutions. There's only one person who provides the hope that lasts forever, and today I'm creeper life Alastair begged reminds us that because of Jesus resurrection. We don't only have hope we can radiate they study is found in Romans 15 verse 13 what I've taken as our text for this morning. The 13th verse here in Romans 15 May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope of Paul in writing to the church at Rome is writing to city city that actually is vastly different this morning what it was when he wrote to Internet day. Although some of the monuments are still around and in writing to these believers in Rome.

He has written to speak to them about the one true and living God and of the Lord Jesus Christ and he says to them that the very outset of his letter. I am not ashamed of the gospel for what it is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek and he was writing to the congregation.

If you like our congregations that were made up of both Jew and Gentile. It was a mixture of if you like strong believers and weak believers.

It combines rich people and poor people, male and female, and now as he comes towards the end of his letter.

He sounds out a note which I was vital in his day and which sounds out down through the corridors of time and the note that he sounds is the note of whole it. When Phillips paraphrases this verse. He actually ends it, not as we have it here that you may abound in hope, but rather he says that by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Your whole life and outlook may be radiant with whole that is what Paul is wishing if you like is praying for these believers to whom he writes they were living in an environment where many of their friends and their neighbors are facing the vicissitudes of life its grim realities. Where themselves actually without any hope at all. I'm supposing you what a compelling testimony. It would be to living faith in the God of Scripture. If these believers in Rome were to be seen as living lives that were marked out by a distinct whole. Well, that's enough concerning that first century context. One of the 21st century context while here we find ourselves at a moment in history when questions of hope. Questions of purpose, questions of meaning are daily on the lips of our leaders and hourly on the minds of all. And the reason for this is absolutely plain. A tiny particle jumped from a bat into a human being somewhere in China and without warning in a matter of weeks.

The whole world is affected and what is so amazing is that this particular virus is no respecter of race of Crete of nationhood of status of wealth or of gender therefore is not surprising that when we turn to the media we find that those who are most able with their pens are giving expression to this genuine sense of fearfulness. For example Philip Johnson in the telegraph this past week I had an article which began or went under which heading it can at times like this, we realize just how powerless mankind really is and then he went on in the course of the article to speak about various things.

Commenting on the enlightenment perspective which comes out in everyday conversation when you find that men and women are saying things like, you know what we can always improve things natural processes can be fixed by ours and as long as we view things in that way.

Then they say we will not have to deal with any silly ideas ascribing these events to fate and certainly not to the wrath of God and yet in the midst of a world that is distinctly scary.

It really doesn't sound very good when people say things like, everything will be okay because scientists will work something out. He after meandering around the various possibilities for cure says if the optimism that is represented in these kind of statements does not prove to be the case, then perhaps I might just be heading back to church. In other words, of maybe go back to the last resort which perhaps should have been the first resort.

While it is in this kind of strange environment that we find ourselves in an age of comparative hopelessness discovering that the purpose of God for us is not simply that we might keep our chins are not simply that we might be able to struggle on and get through it. But in order that we might be enabled to hold in the promises of God.

Despite the circumstances.

It is very very important for us to acknowledge at this time, a number of things.

One, that the Christian is just as likely to catch the virus as anyone else, to the best of our hearts, the most stalwart of us are apt to grow concerned to grow distracted and to become anxious. It would be strange if we did not have a sense of that wouldn't thirdly that the Christian is a person of hope because he or she believes in God, believes in a God who brought the world into being who preserves and sustains it all by his power, who governs the course of human history, according to the general counsel of his will, a will which surpasses our imagination and goes beyond our own intellectual intuition so something of the context of the first century of the 21st century and then what do we find in this text will you notice here that what Paul does is express if you like of a wish or a desire. It is a kind of indirect form of prayer isn't it. I wrote a note to somebody. Just last night saying you know a special measure of God's grace and peace while I was expressing something of a wish that they would know that indirectly I suppose I am looking to God to answer that and it is very much along those lines that Paul writes in this way, you'll find the same approach back in verse five where he says May the God of endurance grant you this, and so on.

No, God is the God of hope, mainly for two reasons. One, because it is God who generates hope in us. Verse four shows us how the place of the Bible is written into God's plan. In this respect, first floor for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so we might think that we might learn so that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have whole then he goes on in verse five to say the God of endurance and the God of encouragement and down in verse 33. He is the God of peace, the God of patients, the God of endurance, comfort, encouragement, peace, the God of all, all of this is made known to us in the Scriptures themselves through the Scriptures, God imparts what he has promised so that hope and endurance and encouragement, and peace are not known by us as a commodity that is outside of ourselves that somehow another we pick off the shelf, but rather that the promises of God. The promises that he makes in making these promises, he gives himself in the promises so is the God of hope because he generates this old and he's also the God of hope, inasmuch as he is the object of our hope. What do we hope for, in whom do we hope Lamentations Jeremiah in the midst of really dreadful circumstances says to himself, the Lord is my portion.

Therefore I will hope in him or in Psalm 73 when the psalmist is confronted by so much that is disheartening to them that is going on around him, and in some senses within them eventually says to himself. Now let me think about this whom have I in heaven, but you and there is nothing on our I desire but you my heart and my flesh may fail but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. Forever if you say well how long do you think this will go usually done by Eastern perhaps the end of May. Maybe integer will listen. If you have God. He is yours forever.

His forever only his who the Lord and me shall part that's the question you see and that is what it is addressed here to affirm this, that the God whom we meet in Scripture is the God of hope is to affirm something that is not remotely superficial, nor is it fleeting when we come to hope as it is given to us here in the Scriptures hope here is the certainty of a reality, not yet fully experience so that we believe and hope that we trust and hope he is the God of hope in the same way. Peace and joy.

You will notice are tied to a sure and certain hope made a God of hope fill you with all joy and peace so that is a hope that is able to stand the test of time. It is a hope that is actually able to deal with the beckoning gray. Somebody says this is very cheering and I like that it is uplifting and already I'm feeling slightly better that there is a God of hope who fills with joy and peace. I notice those two words, there in the text that may be before you to fill you with all joy and peace in believing, or as the NIV has it as you trust in him. As you trust in him you see if our trust is in, for example, our significance then when our significance goes with it.

Nothing. And so it is of fundamental importance that we understand that what Paul is doing here is not trying to say to people in the sort of mantras of our day.

Be safe. No worries. Keep on a kind of series of imperatives that are quite cheering and understandable, but have no solid foundation to the how my supposed to be safe, how my supposed to hope how my supposed to have encouragement receive what is put before us. Here is vastly different because here in the face of the current crisis we actually discover very quickly where our hope is placed because hope is as a result of our engagement. If you like with the promises of God so that behind hope is the promise of God. So our faith is placed in the promise of God and our whole then is grounded in the expectation of the fulfillment of that promise, so that it is not that our hope somehow another, our ability to engender a positive notions in our mind is going to be safe ground for his territory for us whereby we may be secure no no, it is personal.

Believing trust. Note that Romans is Paul's probably greatest theological treatise. Second to that is the letter that he wrote to the Ephesians and when he wrote to the Ephesians, having reminded them in the early part of his letter of the amazing purpose of God in putting together a people for himself. He then says to them resetting to their own personal circumstances.

In verse 13 of Ephesians 1 in him that is in Jesus. You also, when you hear the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of his glory. So it is reserved in heaven for as as Peter says in his lighter a letter. It is imperishable. It is undefiled. It is kept in heaven for you, it is guaranteed. On the strength of the promise that is ours in Jesus. In him that is in Jesus. When you hared you believe that of course raises the question of where we are in relationship to that because very quickly in his letter, Paul goes on in chapter 2 to describe what their circumstance was prior to their trusting in Jesus. And remember, you have this amazing statement where he says, and before you came to understand these things you where separated from Christ, alienated strangers, and here's the phrase having no hope and without God in the world is a will is not a very nice thing to say, it's what the Bible says love ones and indeed the wonder of a hope that is grounded in a resurrected Jesus only has significance in relation to the fact that outside of Jesus. We are actually without whole. You see, ultimately, the great fear that sweeps our world is the great fear of everyone in all the world and that is the fear of death and the great and underlying question is has anyone conquered death and have they made a way for me to conquer to now I say to you, scan your newspapers listen to the words of the pundits and then go directly to your Bibles and see if these things are actually so when Peter describes this amazing transaction. This divine impact whereby a man or woman comes to rest in Christ, your memories is at the very beginning of his letter he says and you have been born again to a living hope I living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead mother can ask you today is this where your hope is found in Christ alone. Do you realize that our salvation is not made sure by the strength of our belief by the strength of God that it is not by our goodness, but by the merits of the Lord Jesus, that it is not grounded in our wisdom, but in the wisdom of God that is expressed in the cross, which of course is foolishness to the world. You would think, wouldn't you, that men and women would immediately be not simply heading to church but looking to see whether in the pages of Scripture. These facts are actually there for their discovery that God saves people and fills them with whole, making the whole outlive filled in this way, you see this joy and peace that is ours and believing flows from and also flows to the experience of hope, so that in the end we are able to abound in hope, in other words, in quiet ways, but purposefully were able to engage with people in conversation and say to them, you know, there is hope in the midst of this, and it is found in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ that this hope is the fruit if you like of God's kindness and goodness to us. Despite our sin that this hope rests on Jesus alone that it is ours through grace alone, by faith alone. I have a strange feeling that there are some of us who respond to a crisis like this in there and were saying to ourselves. You know I just don't think I have faith enough mad be so bold as to say it may be that you do not have faith et al., because the faith that is grounded in the covenant promises of God. The faith that is made to us in all of its fulfillment in Jesus is right here and is there for us to trust in me and in this way, I almost brought a crash helmet with me here this morning and I thought well, no, don't do that. But the reason I was going to bring it was just because of some in the process towards the end of first Thessalonians 5. He's giving a series of expectations to the believer and he says you know, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love and for a helmet the hope of salvation. Now I'm no motorbike writer, I have a funny little scooter you can really go fast enough to harm yourself. I don't think, but I have a friend and he always says the same thing to me you're not going to go out on the road without your helmet. Are you are you not going to go out on the road into life know without your helmet. Are you in for a helmet the whole of salvation. This certainty of a reality that is ours now but that there is yet more to be discovered and into which we will enter bias goodness, just a prayer together. Prayer. This may be a prayer that I've written just for you wherever you are.

Dear Lord Jesus, I have known of you for a long time but I have never come to personally trust in you. I have known your promises of forgiveness and of new life, but I've been keeping going on my own, but no more today, I freely confess my need. If you as a Savior, Lord and friend, forgive my sins and make me all your own and grant that through hole and the joy and peace which is mine by the Holy Spirit. My life in due course may become radiant with hope in listening to Alastair Bragg this is Truth for Life.

Maybe you prayed with Alastair, there may be, for the first time you'd like to know more about the hope that is found only in Jesus Christ.

We will invite you to go to the learn more page on our website is a brief video there from Alastair that explains the gospel along with an illustrated presentation shows God's plan for salvation and the hope that he brings. Simply visit Truth for Life.org/learn more. The story of the gospel is a message of hope with our prayer that as you listen to the Bible teaching here in Truth for Life. You become more firmly grounded in God's word and to encourage you to grow deeper in your faith. We also provide books to strengthen your knowledge and your love of God. In fact, our book recommendation today highlights the truth that there is no God like our God. The book is called none else. 31 meditations on God's character and attributes. This is a one month devotional that takes a closer look at what God reveals about himself in Scripture. Every chapter begins with the Scripture meditation or prayer included this helpful commentary and there are questions to reflect on is also an opportunity to dig deeper into other scriptures. Spend time each day getting to know God better request a copy of the devotional none else.

When you get to support the teaching here on this program is our website Truth for Life.org/donate call 888588788 Bob Lapine maybe you participated in the trust fall nor you fall backward and there's someone there to catch you. Hope there there you trust that there there a greater sense.

Life is all about faith and trust question is where are we putting our faith.

We should listen tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Alastair beg is furnished by Truth for Life with Learning is for Living