As we gather here today there is a lot of uncertainty in the
world in which we live. Our economy is
not very good; nation after nation are having upheavals trying to remove their
government leaders; an horrific event has taken place in Aurora, CO where
innocent people were killed attending a movie; and let’s be real the word being
a Christian has a stigma attached to it that makes people see us as lepers in a
clean society. I realize that life is
hard and some of us would like to go back to the good ‘ol days, but we are
where we are and I stand before you today to talk to you about hope in the
light of what seems like a hopeless world.
We are going to jump into the Scriptures right away and if
you will notice on your insert on one side is the Scriptures and on the other
is your fill in the blank page. I want
to take us from where it all went wrong to a place that will give all of us a
hope and joy to face not only today, but tomorrow as well.
In the book of Genesis we read, “23
therefore the LORD God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground
from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the
man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming
sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.” This pericope of Scripture is the passage
concerning man’s expulsion from the presence of God; the relationship between
God and man has been fractured and as the Word says, “God sent the man out of the
Garden.” Not only that in the very next verse we are told that “God
drove out the man.” In a matter of a few words it went from Adam being
told to leave the Garden to Adam forcefully being removed from the presence of
God. From Adam’s perspective he had to be
feeling a mix of emotions: hurt; concern for his family; a feeling of
abandonment; depression; fear; worry; his thought concerning what the future
would hold; what emotions must have been running through his mind when he was
separated from the actual presence of God. These emotions and concerns felt by
Adam are the same emotions all of us feel when we are separated from God. Adam had to have a feeling of hopelessness in
a situation and a world that he saw as hopeless. We also need to understand that all of these all
emotions Adam felt are the same emotions that Satan uses to his advantage in
our lives. Now there is one important
thing about Adam being banished from the presence of God, “Man no longer had access to the
Tree of Life!” When man was
created by God, he and she were created to have an intimate, eternal
relationship that was face-to-face with God and now – “that creation” – had
gone horribly wrong. Man’s
hope was gone! It is just a
little while later in the Book of Genesis we are told that, “…the LORD was sorry that He
had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart” (Genesis 6:6).
Man and God were separated – what hope is these for mankind?
The good news this morning
is that nothing catches God off-guard and He had a plan already in place. Turn with me to Ephesians chapter 1 and let
us look at this passage of Scripture. 4
just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having
predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the
glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in the Beloved. 7
In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according
to the riches of His grace. If we believe that God is all-knowing and I do,
then as this passage tells us, God knew Adam and Eve would sin and so He had a
plan in place before the creation of the world to reconcile us back to
Him. I love how in verse 4 it tells us
that God
chose us before the foundation of the world. God chose to adopt us through Jesus Christ
because it pleased Him to do so. And
we see that through the blood of Jesus Christ our sins are forgiven and we are
redeemed. Are you beginning to
see a glimmer of hope this morning? Can
you see that it is God who desires to have that intimate relationship with you
and me, even more than we do? It is God who not only wants us back, but wants
to give us access to the Tree of Life again and that can only happen through
the blood, redemption, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
If you are like most people the small book of Titus is one that you don’t
frequent too much, but it is chocked full of great information. Turn with me to Titus 2 and let us read this
Scripture together. 11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared
to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly
lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13
looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior
Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us
from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people,
zealous for good works. 15 Speak these things,
exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you. First and
foremost we need to understand that it is by the grace of God that we are saved.
We cannot be good enough, we cannot
work hard enough, and we cannot help enough needy people to earn our way in
heaven. As we saw in the Ephesians
passage earlier, it is God’s desire that we be reunited with Him in an intimate
and eternal relationship; we are to become His “special people”. Now hope is a word that has so many meanings,
but if we look at the Greek translation of this word I believe it puts it in
perspective for us this morning. In
the Greek the word hope means confident expectation. We are confidently expecting what we hear or
read to be true and believe that it has happened, will continue to happen, and will
happen in the future. Although we were
separated by the fall of mankind, Jesus Christ came back to be our sacrifice,
placing us in a right relationship with God if we will only confess Him as Lord
and Savior and believe that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). Through Christ we are redeemed and purified.
It is as simple as that brothers and sisters.
In the beautiful hymn Because He Lives,
we hear these wonderful words: God sent His son, they called Him Jesus, He came to love,
heal, and forgive. He lived and died to buy my pardon, an empty grave is there
to prove my Savior lives. Christ
came to love us, heal us and forgive us and through His death He bought our
pardon and by His resurrection we have the hope of eternal life. And our hope or shall we say “confident
expectation” doesn’t just include the present, but our hope expressed by Paul to
Titus is in the return or the 2nd appearance of Jesus Christ. The return of Christ to bring us back to Him
is expressed in John 14 where He says, “That where
I am is where you will be,” is a wonderful and powerful hope of being
with Christ for all of eternity!
We have learned today how and why we were separated from God
and how God had a plan to bring us back into that right relationship with Him
through Jesus Christ. Now we need to learn
how to apply this in our lives. How can
we take this hope of the salvation of Jesus Christ and put it into common
everyday practice. Turn with me to
Isaiah 63 for just a moment because it will tell us something important about
Jesus and also reiterate what He did for us.
Read along with me, “1
Who is this who comes from Edom, With dyed garments from Bozrah, This One
who is glorious in His apparel, Traveling in the greatness of His strength?
– ‘I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’ 2 Why is Your
apparel red, And Your garments like one who treads in the winepress? 3
‘I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with
Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their
blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes.’” There is a
key word in this passage that most of us would miss that describes how Jesus
can help us through those difficult and evil times and that word is
“Edom”. Edom was the name that God
changed from Esau; Esau became known as Edom. When Saul was king he was told to
wipe out the evil Edomites or the descendants of Esau, including the women and
children and livestock. King Saul did
not do this and today those descendants of Esau are called Palestinians. The point I want to make about this word is that Jesus has
been to the evil places before us.
There is nothing that we will encounter in life that Jesus hasn’t
already been there and done that. So
when we rest our hope in Him we can rest assured that He knows what we are
dealing with. This should give us a
confident expectation or confident assurance to put all our hope and trust in
Jesus Christ! In this passage from
Isaiah it reinforces and reemphasizes that it is by His blood we are redeemed or healed
in the eyes of God. Nothing we can do
can achieve this – only the blood of Jesus Christ!
The final Scripture this morning comes from Philippians chapter 4. Turn with me to this passage and let’s look
at what it is saying to us this morning.
8 Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever
things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are
pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good
report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy – meditate on these things. 9 The things which you
learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace
will be with you. Now I have to
tell you I cannot do justice to this passage this morning from a time
standpoint, but I will hit three quick points in these verses. First, the word “meditate” means to “take an
inventory,” so we need to take an inventory of our life. This means we need to make sure we are doing
things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, virtuous, and worthy of praise
and good report. If you go to Galatians
5:22 you are going to see many of these same words and thoughts used in the
description of the fruit of the Spirit – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. When we take inventory, we are
taking stock of our life and we ask ourselves, “Does my witness, whether verbal
or life-witness, reflect Jesus Christ or does it reflect the world?” Once we have taken inventory we are told in
verse 9 to put these traits into practice. We’ve all heard we preach our funeral
everyday – well as I have asked in this part of the Scripture: are we living a
God-driven life or are we living a life that is more for the world, flesh and
Satan. We need to put into practice what
we preach with our words. This Scripture
says that when we do that the God of peace will be with you. The word “peace” means “to set at one
again.” When I studied this verse
in-depth I realized something that all of us already know – we
are made one with God through Jesus Christ. Now this isn’t new to any of us, but
something that God showed me in verse 9 did make this thought come to have new
meaning. Remember how I started out this
message talking about the separation of Adam and Eve from God at the Fall of
Man. Guess what this verse is telling
you and me this morning – it is teaching us that when we come to know Jesus
Christ as our Lord and Savior the relationship God had with mankind before the
fall has been restored! Our relationship
with God becomes like the one that existed prior to the fall! We can walk with God in the cool of the
day! We can talk with God
face-to-face! We can be in the presence
of God on a daily basis! We can have
that intimate relationship with God that Adam and Eve had prior to the
fall! We can now eat from the Tree of Life;
we are no longer banished from the Garden!
Now that is a confident expectation or as we call it hope this morning!
Do you have that type of
relationship with God this morning? You
already have it if you have confessed with your mouth that Jesus Christ is your
Lord and Savior and believe that God raised Him from the dead. If you haven’t made that commitment and want
that confident expectation or assurance of having that type of intimate
relationship with God this morning, then come forward during our closing hymn
and make that commitment today – God desires for you to have it and that is
where our hope lies this morning – in Jesus Christ our Lord! To all those who have ears let them hear!
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