The God of Hope

Well, a lot of cool stuff I think to talk about today. I did something this last week that I've never done before and that's, I called up Roger and said, can I steal four of your slides? He said, sure, go ahead. And I did it because, what's interesting about these verses that they, I think they need to be in context all the time so we know what we're really talking about. So I wanna start back in verse seven, eight, and nine, where Paul tells the Romans that they should accept one another just as Jesus accepted us to the glory of God. It's a really strong statement.

For I say that Christ has become a servant to the circumcision, circumcision obviously are the Gentiles, or the Jews on behalf of the truth of God to confirm the promises given to the father. So he's fulfilling the promises that he made to the fathers, Abraham and all of the Jewish fathers. And the Lord Jesus in order to fulfill those promises became a servant. and the Gentiles, and for the Gentiles to glorify God for his mercy at it is written, therefore, I will give praise to thee among the Gentiles, and I will sing to you thy name. So he's covered in these verses, both Jews and Gentiles, which covers all humanity.

So back to verse seven, Roger did a great job and he has this way of diagramming sentences which really help us understand without having all the lines drawn and stuff like that. He says, therefore, Paul's conclusion in seven is, to you strong and you weak, accept, continually accept one another all the time. Just as, and so there's an example. Christ also accepted us. Now I know I wouldn't be lying if I said that in order to come to Christ, you have to realize that what you are in Adam is not acceptable to him. So he accepts you on the basis of what he did, not what you are. And he did it, the whole purpose that he does everything is to glorify God. That's what he does.

So 14.1 says, now accept one another, the one who is weak in the faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. Paul now says, accept one another after giving us the teaching of the strong and the weak believers. We're finished at this point with a discussion between the strong and the weak believer, and we're gonna see something a little different about that today. Therefore, except one another, justice Christ accepted you for glory.

Therefore, looks back to 14.1, Paul will use the same verb in 14.1, proslavano, which means to take to oneself If you ever think of your salvation that way, God came and took you to himself. That's what he really did. He just said, I'm taking you to me. It's present tense and it's continuous action. It means we don't do it just once and quit. It goes on all the time. And it's God's will that we do that. It's an imperative. It's a command. and it's in the middle voice, which is, this is a great way to describe the middle voice. It's for your benefit. You realize the benefit of the action.

So you're signifying a special interest on the part of the receiver, suggesting a welcome from Vine, a warm and tender welcome from Helma Loy, or one another, strong or weak, doesn't matter, you're accepted. mutually receiving in fellowship, Ron Merriman.

Therefore, except one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God, just as, even as, or in as much as, in the same manner, Christ also accepted believers. Now you think about that for a minute, and you think, well, the Lord Jesus accepted me the way that I was, How can I put rules on somebody else that I'll accept them if they're a measure up to my rules? The Lord Jesus accepted me and took me to his side just like he was. Now, we learned in the process that he crucified me, buried and resurrected me so that I would be like him. But I'm accepted. This looks to the event, airstance of the death of Christ on the cross, not only for me, but my dying with him. Defining this word said, Thayer says, God and Christ are said to have received those who formerly were estranged from them.

They accepted all of us for one purpose, and that was to glorify themselves. So the reason for that has been before I, Paul, say Christ has become, came into a new state of being, a servant. We don't think that's a big deal, or do you? Because before Christ became a servant, what was his role? Oh yeah, he is God, isn't he? and people serve him, he doesn't serve anybody.

But he became a servant on the behalf of the truth of God to the circumcision, to Israel. He came to serve them for the glory of God and so to confirm the promises given to the fathers. Matthew 15, 24, but he Christ answered and said, I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. Verse eight says, is a summary of Christ's earthly ministry.

So, with that as a preamble, the verse today, one verse is a prayer, the other verse is a statement. The first verse we're gonna talk about is 15.13 says, now may the God of hope fill you with all joy, and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." There's a lot there, isn't there? In the statement, and concerning you, my brother, and I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness and filled with all knowledge and able to also to admonish one another. statement. So let's deal with the question first, or with the prayer first. The first thing he does is he calls God, the God of hope. What's great about that is this is kind of a new name for God. He's the God of hope.

Romans 15.5 says, now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant to you to be of the same mind with one another according to Jesus Christ.

Now here's my attempt to diagram a sentence, see how it goes. Perseverance and encouragement, perseverance, endurance, hupomone, which is Chester McCauley's favorite word, enduring patience, load-carrying ability. It's just a terrific Greek word. And, Encouragement. It means parakalisis, to come alongside, to call alongside, with patience to carry.

So 15.5 says, God who gives perseverance, endurance, encouragement, grant to you the same mind with one another according to Jesus Christ.

So the God of hope, If you look at hope, we always talk about hope as being something we look forward to in the future, but I like this definition. It's an expectation directed toward that which is good. I'm expecting something in the future that's really good, and I have hope about that. It's favorable, confident expectation.

Do I have a confident expectation that when I leave the planet, I'm going to be face to face with the Lord, that I'm going to be just like him, that I'm going to spend eternity with him, and I'm going to have a new body? All of those, yeah, I am. And so are you.

Romans 15, 13 said, God is spoken of as a God of hope. He's the author of the hope, not the subject of the hope. He's the one that says it. He's the one that proclaims it. So, the God of hope. Peace is essential for believers. Christ made peace by the blood of his cross. The peace between man and him. But we're not to be satisfied with peace alone.

Many believers stop at Romans 5.1 being justified by faith. We have peace with God and they live their whole life based on the fact that they have peace with God. God isn't mad at them anymore. They're somehow signed a treaty. But verse 13, God speaks as the God of hope and he wants us full of joy as well as peace. so as to be abounding in hope, not just satisfied with peace in the power of the Holy Spirit.

So if you look at some other passages, it will say, Romans 5.2 says, we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

We see that term, the glory of God, a lot Envision in your mind that when Christ is glorified, in other words, the sum total of his intrinsic attributes will be manifested and displayed to all creation. Where are you going to be when that happens? Are you going to be a spectator so you get to see it? No, you're going to be glorified with him, with him. So we rejoice in hope.

Ephesians 2.7 says, in order that in the ages to come he might show the surpassing riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. So here's our hope based in an event or is it based in a person? Has to be the person. Has to be. There was all that he said, there are two aspects to what he said, and this doctrine can be noted, and this divides so that we can be clear about it. Israel had a hope, but their hope was the coming Messiah and his kingdom on the earth. That's their hope. Your hope and my hope is entered on the soon return of Christ.

That's what we hope. Christ is coming for us. The kingdom will be part of that, but that's not what we're looking for. We're looking for him, him. So, Paul's perfect prayer calls for the God of hope to bless and fill those Romans and all believers. That's what he's asking for. It is God who gives the hope which we have in Christ. So it's a gift.

The joy and peace which he imparts rests on faith and believing. We're going to divide that up a little more in a minute. The joy and peace especially flowing from justification and acceptance with God It flows from our union in which the Lord Jesus and the more we have of these, the more we abound in the hope of the Holy Spirit. The more we learn about what God has done and who he is, the more we rejoice, the more our hope is built.

So Paul uses the term fill you. It means to cram, to level up, to fill, to overflowing, and it's an aorist tense, it's fact. Of believers with the Spirit, with joy and gladness and good cheer, peace and quietness, all of that, Paul says that's what he prays, that the Spirit of God for every believer, that their joy and their gladness and their peace would be overflowing, not just adequate. It's God himself alone who can fill us with all joy, peace, and making us abound in hope. We can't transform ourselves into that. You can try really hard, but you won't get this. So it is by the power of the indwelling spirit that we are to abound in hope.

Sometimes you wonder, well, what is the spirit doing? Well, here's something that he's doing. He's filling believers with the glory of God and with hope so that they will abound in the hope. Some people are just naturally introspective and they're gloomy, includes Christians. Others are naturally cheerful and they're really happy all the time. We all know people like that. But the joy which we as believers are to flourish does not have anything to do with flowing from what you naturally are. It's direct from the in-working energy of the Holy Spirit that you and I are joyful, filled with joy and hope. So this abounding hope is by the power of the Holy Spirit. He's busy doing this.

Acts 1.8, Paul says, or I just lost who wrote it, Luke. but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and even the remotest parts of the earth. What's he telling them? He's saying, look, I have a job for you to do, but the power to do it is gonna come from the Holy Spirit. And when you're filled with him, you're gonna be my witnesses in the whole world.

Luke 4.14 said, and Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit. Isn't that interesting? Even Jesus moved around in the power of the Spirit. And the news about him spread throughout the surrounding district. The end contemplated in Paul's prayer here is that the God of hope would fill the Romans and all believers with joy and peace in believing. Let's look about in believing. Most of the time we talk about faith as a noun, right? Faith as a noun.

Well, it's not a noun here. It's a participle, which is a form of, takes the place of a verb. And it has, it says in believing. The in part is a fixed portion. It's a place or time or a state. It's permanent. Believing, As a participle is active voice, I'm sorry, it's present tense, active voice, and it's an infinitive. An infinitive takes the place of a verb. So it's an action word. It's an action word. It's not just a definition word. It's something that moves. When a verb is used, it is not viewing faith as a quality, but as an activity.

Some words are so clear in the meaning that attempts to define them do nothing except cloud their meaning. And the word believe is one of those words. If I say to you, believe, do you have any question about what I'm saying? Believe is a really easy word to understand. When someone asks you to believe something, one does not become confused over what it means to believe. If I say, well, you either believe it or you don't, accent word.

Do you need to say, well, define for me what believing is? I could say, do you believe that the Rockies are gonna win this afternoon? Do I have to define believe? Believing here refers to intelligent acceptance of a truth. from Louis Ferris Schaeffer. I like that definition, intelligent acceptance of truth.

So Newell says, when asked, Newell says, when asked by the Jews in John chapter 6, what must you do, what must we do that we may work the works of God? Perfect Jewish question. Answer. This is the work of God. The one thing he asks of you, what is it? That you believe in him whom he has sent. That's the work. That's the action word, believe.

Believing is living by faith in the son of God every day, every minute. It is a stepping out on the facts God reveals about us and learning to live a life that trusts all the time. Paul declares that the principle that prevails in this dispensation is what? The principle of faith. But if you say it as a verb, believe. Okay. Now, another attempt at a diagram.

Now may the God of hope fill you with joy and peace in believing that you may abound in hope. So abound is a word that means more than enough to be preeminent, superior, to be abundantly furnished, to abound in a thing, just abound, abound, abound. If you won the lottery, I would say you probably are abounding in cash. You got more than you need. in hope. Expectation directed toward that which is good, favorable, confident expectation.

Imagine walking around as a believer with this attitude that I am abundantly furnished every second with favorable and confident expectations from the Lord. That's pretty cool. And the last part of the verse is by the power of the Holy Spirit. God is the God of hope and he would have his people to abound in hope. He goes on, he's going to carry through without fail every purpose of his love in connection with those whom he has called.

Is there any doubt in any of your minds that at some point every one of us will be conformed to the image of Christ? That should be an abounding hope. I'm really looking forward to that. The Holy Spirit gives us power to hold it all in our souls as a matter of hope.

And God is going to carry out His work with all His saints and He's going to secure all that because of his purpose. What's his purpose? To glorify himself. So he's going to glorify us with himself. That's his purpose. If we abound in hope as having before us what God has before him, it will keep us bright and sustain us even in the presence of all the weakness and departure that we have manifested ourselves in the Christian walk. abounding in hope. I'll give you an example of what I mean.

If you look at Romans 8.26, you see in that verse that in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness.

For we don't know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Interesting. This is an admission that we don't know how to pray like we should, but the Spirit of God is going to teach us. How much do you value what the Holy Spirit does? Would you know how to pray without him? Probably not.

It's a wonderful and beautiful and encouraging thing, I think, because you think that the Spirit of God in me is so interested in me that he actually presents to God the very things he desires which are peculiar to me and to you. He makes intercessions with groanings, and groanings are interesting. They're the kind of things that, how do you define a groaning? It has so much depth of interest you can't define it. The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Spirit of God knows what's best for us. He searches it out and he tells you and instructs you and what God's will is for you. Every exercised believer longs to enter into the Spirit's desire. Wouldn't we all just love to know, what is the Spirit's desire for me? Well, this is one of them. Verse 14, This is a spirit, an individual going through the wilderness, and this is personal.

This is not the church body prayer here. We prayed this morning for what? People that have needs. And we know that. In the church, we pray in the Holy Spirit. We know what to ask for. We do. We prayed for Tom. We prayed for different people. We are in fellowship with the spirit as to the interest of the Lord Jesus in our body of believers. But here, this is an individual thing, individual needs. We know not what to pray for as we ought, but the spirit makes intercession for us.

It is the most touching, the depth of his interest, and it's the most comforting thing. That to walk around every day and to realize that the spirit of God is searching in our hearts for goodness, where God can, where he can communicate to us what we ought to know and pray about from the Father's will. This explains, I think, how you advance, really, in divine things.

The Spirit of God is acting for you, and God searches my heart. How cool is that? You say, well, I don't want him searching my heart. There's a lot of blackness in there. No, he searches their heart, not looking for the bad, but for the good and what the Spirit desires for you and me.

Consequently, he helps my infirmities. He helps me in the very circumstances which I am. What could be more comforting? No matter how dire your circumstances are today, this is going on with you right now. The more I am in the Spirit, the more I'm entering into his desire for me, whatever it is. So 13 says, we are rather rising out of the wilderness than actually being in it.

Now the God of hope fill you. You're rising out of the circumstance. With all joy and peace and believing that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit, J.B. Stoney. I hope you see that. So the Spirit helps me with regard to the things here. The Spirit of God so identifies himself with me that I have a helper in all of these things. He interests himself in all of my concerns. He helps me, and this is a power downward, William Newell.

But when John wrote his gospel, which we're studying on Wednesday night, and you're welcome to join, to the churches. The churches were in a really sad state, but he wrote about the Son of God, and the Father, and the Comforter, and about the thoughts of divine love in relation to those given by the Father to the Son. He is a blessed example of one filled with all joy and peace in believing and abounding in hope. When you study John's gospel, you can see that John has a task, and it's probably a painful task, like a lot of Paul's epistles. They're painful for him to write because the believers are not abounding, and they should be.

So now if God is the God of hope, looking forward with expectancy and delight to certain glorious and things of the future, I love this part, then a dejected, repressed, discouraged saint of his is yielding to a spirit directly contrary to his will which is for each of us that we abound in hope. His will for us is to abound in hope, not to be discouraged, not to be dejected, and not to be repressed.

Here is this great fountain of grace. In chapter 15, 13, we find that a daily hourly be filled with all hope and peace and believing and abounding in hope is the normal state for everyone who is in Christ. It's a normal condition. Now, second, I'm gonna talk about this so hopefully it fits right. He's just been praying about the Spirit making believers abound in joy, right? He's finished up in the previous verses about how a weak believer is to react to a strong believer and a strong believer to a weak believer. Well, now he gets away from all of that and he makes a pronouncement.

He said, I'm persuaded of you, my brethren, that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able to admonish one another. Who are those guys? They're both strong and weak. In his mind, they're all strong. Persuade here is an interesting, he said, it's passive voice. It means the persuasion was applied to me, to him. I was won over by the persuasion. I'm convinced a change of mind by the influence of reason or moral consideration according to mine.

Romans 1, 8, St. Paul says, first, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all because of your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world. Was he just sort of trying to make them feel good when they really weren't, this wasn't really the case? No, this is really the case. So 13 and 14 here have mainly to do with those inner gifts of the Spirit which enable believers with loving hearts and discerning knowledge to look after one another's spiritual needs without any of the apostles' help. He's persuaded about what? You are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge. Paul was persuaded concerning them that they were full of goodness and knowledge.

What a contrast in what he has said of the natural man in Romans chapter three, verses 10 through 18. You remember that chapter? I paraphrase the one where you have vipers in your mouth and all this, I mean, it's awful, go read it. The gospel comes to us as not having one feature of goodness about us.

And it works such miracles that we are filled with goodness and with all knowledge. If this isn't accomplished in your life, as we used to say in the Marine Corps, stand by. because it's a great active prospect. This is where the Lord is going with you and me, that we would be good, filled with all knowledge, that we would abound with faith. The goodness here for the saints is what I would call intelligent goodness. One of the great things about studying God's word is that it makes you intelligent about goodness, because you learn about the Lord Jesus Christ, who is good, And here's what a believer who's good knows. He knows himself. He knows what he came from. He knows that God is revealed in righteous grace. He knows that. He knows the Lord Jesus Christ. He knows the Spirit is indwelling him. He knows the brethren as one body in Christ.

Therefore, filled with all knowledge, there is an ability to admonish one another. These things are the elements of intelligent goodness. You know these things, and you know a lot more than this. But admonish, being able to admonish one another. When Jim read it, he didn't use the word admonish, but I really like the word admonish. because it says, we always need admonishing, it is putting in mind the things known, not the teaching of what is unknown. Cool thing happened last week, and some of us were, we had a Tuesday noon Bible study, we had a Tuesday night Bible study, and we had a Wednesday night Bible study. They were probably three of the best I've ever gone to. because this admonishing thing was going on through all three of those things. Everybody was talking, they were encouraging one another, they had something to say, and it wasn't that we were learning something that was unknown, but things were being put back in your mind, oh yeah, that's really neat. So I walked away edified. So I'm a real fan of admonishing.

This letter here in Romans is a good example of admonishment. Paul does not write as to people who didn't know. He assumes all through that they know what he's speaking about. But he puts them in mind of what they knew so that the power of it might work intelligently in their souls to bring the results for God.

Now, Admonishing doesn't mean, I'm a stronger believer and I'm gonna tell you how to do it. And admonishing doesn't mean that a weak believer is gonna resent the fact that the strong believer has liberty. This word means just to put to mind by invocation, caution with reprove to or reprove gently, reprove gently. We can hopefully admonish one another because the truth of what we speak is known to us as believers.

If you came up to me and said, I want to talk to you about, about halfway through that conversation, I'm going to say, oh yeah, I already know that. And I'm thankful that you were bringing it up, because I had forgotten it. Or I was in an environment where I was acting where that wasn't present in the way I should be acting. A brother or sister have often called my attention to what I know in a way that has brought it home to me with freshness and set me a little more in the good of it.

I think it's a privilege, a wonderful privilege, to belong to a community a church, a body of believers, where everyone continually brings before us the precious things of God. We have an obligation. We should do that all the time. And that's not pious platitudes. It's what we have learned through.

So I find it really interesting that although the weak believer and the strong believer have certain principles. But when you get down to it, where Paul talks about every believer is strong, I think, then this thing of admonishment comes in. And I, for one, appreciate it. It's interesting when you're a teacher, for people to come to you and not challenge you, but remind you. or want to talk something over, or what did you really mean? I think that promotes fellowship within a body of believers like nothing else can do. Because I would not look at any of you as being ignorant about the truths. You all know them. You all know them. So, that's close.

My dear Father, how we thank you. We thank you for your spirit who works in us constantly, so that we might be filled to overflowing in all peace and joy and believing. And also works to persuade us, like he persuaded you, of the goodness found in us because we do belong to you. And of the openness of admonishing that we can do with one another that helps every one of us stay on the track. of spiritual growth and conformity to your son. We thank you, Father. We pray in your son's name. Amen.