The Christian Hope
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
8/18/2013 PM
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Text:
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I Peter 1:3-5
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Psalters: |
263, 363, 71, 117 |
Sacrament of Baptism |
- Its identity. Hope is the spiritual virtue whereby our spiritually regenerated life surges upward and forward.
- Hope deals with the future; the expectation of something good whose coming is certain, which we long to have.
- The object of all hope is in the future (cf. Rom. 8:24,25); we hope for that which is yet to come.
- Hope is built on confidence that God will fulfill His promises.
- And hope strongly desires its object.
- It is this hope which makes one a pilgrim and a stranger in this world.
- We are strangers to those without hope, and it makes them strangers to us.
- It makes us pilgrims, i.e., one travelling and not staying fixed here.
- We experience a constant tension between our desire for this life and for that to come!
- The object.
- The hope of the Christian is a ?lively? hope, i.e., a living hope, a hope of life.
- It is to experience perfect life: knowing God and fellowshipping with Him.
- It is knowing perfectly His smile of love and reconciliation.
- An inheritance reserved in heaven.
- That it is an ?inheritance? emphasizes that it is a gift unearned, given without obligation by the Father.
- It is in ?heaven,? the place of eternal pleasure.
- The source of this hope is regeneration (and the nature of the new life given in this spiritual rebirth).
- The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ begat us again.
- God, as Father, also begets His elect people, making them His children when He gives His life to them.
- By virtue of this life we not only are made God?s children, but also we are born unto a life in heaven (now our home).
- The Holy Spirit leads us to think of the future.
- The same power which begets us unto this hope also preserves us in that hope: divine power!
- The greatest display of divine power was the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
- The answer to our despair is the resurrection of Jesus Whose life resides within us by regeneration!
- The author is our Father Who performed this act of greatest mercy.
- It is nothing less than God?s fervent desire to bless us miserable sinners.
- Therefore we praise and bless Him: ?Blessed ??