Keep the Hope

 By Pastor Jeff,

1 Corinthians 13:13, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.” We have many sermons about “Faith” and many more about “Love”, but I want to take some time to talk about the middle one in this verse, “Hope”!

Hope is mostly defined as to anticipate something or desire something to happen, when we think of hope we use terms like I hope I get that job, I hope my favorite team wins, I hope we get that house we want, and so on. The bible however says of hope, Hebrews 11:1-3, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 
For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” Does that sound like a maybe?

The word hope in the bible means; to expect or confide:—(have, thing) hope (-d) (for), trust, in one definition they used the word “concrete”. Interestingly some translations of the word faith in the bible are the same Greek word translated Hope elsewhere, for example, Hebrews 10:23, “Let us hold fast the profession of our faith (Hope) without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;). When we place our “Hope” in Jesus Christ we can be certain, Psalms 71:5, “For thou art my hope, O Lord GOD: thou art my trust from my youth.” 14, “But I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more.”

The enemy of our soul is doing all he can to cause us believers in Jesus Christ to lose hope, and unfortunately our circumstances dictate how we feel about hope more than it should. Sickness, death, finances, relationships all have an affect on our hope. Mercy Me has a new song that I find very powerful in addressing this, one verse goes like this, “I know You are able, I know You can, save through the fire with a mighty hand, but even if You don’t my Hope is in You alone”. This world is not always a pretty place to live but we need to remember that for us believers it’s only temporary. Revelations 21:1-4, “And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.”

Keep the HOPE, its not a maybe, its concrete!

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