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Sermon Notes

Question #1
What is our only hope in life and death?
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
Two questions we'll ask every week:
  • What Should We Believe?
  • Why Does it Matter?
1) What Should We Believe?
 
A. God Alone is the Giver of Lasting Hope
  • What is our only hope in life and death?
  • Not just the words of a catechism...
    • 1 Timothy 1:1 --  ". . . Christ Jesus our hope . . . "
    • Romans 15:13 --  "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."
  • Hope is more than a feeling or a belief, it's a person!
B. Hope is Rooted in Belonging
  • That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
  • Rom 5:1-5 --  "Through [Jesus] we have also obtained access by faith into this grace  in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that  suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us
  • The hope Paul survives despite suffering! Why? Because it's about belonging to God!
  • Hope isn't rooted in behavior
C. Hope is Bigger than This Life Alone
  • That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
  • Romans 14:7–8 --  For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.
  • 1 Corinthians 15:19 --  If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
  • The Christian hope is not about living your best life now, but living with Christ forever! And that sometimes means your life on this earth is filled with trouble. If this life is all there is, it's a wasted life!
D. There is No Hope if There is No Gospel
  • That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
  • Ephesians 2:11-13 -- Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made  in the flesh by hands—remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants  of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been  brought near by the blood of Christ.
  • If Jesus did not die and rise again, we are absolutely hopeless. 
    • The Gospel is not an important doctrine, it's an essential doctrine!
2) How Should We Live?
 
Orthodoxy without orthopraxy is merely demonic faith
 
A. Repent of False Hopes
  • Jeremiah 2:13 -- "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water."
  • Unbeliever: all the things you put your hope in will disappoint you
  • Christian: it's an election year; are you putting your hope in a politician or a party? Are your hopes in 2020? In your resolutions?
  • Often most visible in the way we try to encourage one another when we're suffering: "I know you'll be healed." "She's in a better place." "I'm confident you'll have a baby one day." "You will find the right guy/gal, just wait." Etc.
  • What do we do if we've placed our hopes in the wrong place? Confess and forsake it as sin, and believe the Gospel.
B. Repent of Grumbling & Complaining
  • Tell me what you grumble and complain about and I'll tell you where your functional hope is found
  • What do we do if we've been guilty of this? Confess and forsake it as sin, and believe the Gospel.
    • C. Tell Others About Your Hope
  • If you really believe that Jesus is our only hope, why would you be silent about it?
  • Parents/Grandparents: teach your kids! Spend time this week talking about tonight's catechism question
  • Husbands: take 5 minutes every week to talk with your wife about these questions 
  • New Believers: grow in your understanding of this hope so you can share it with others!
  • Church Members: one of our responsibilities towards one another is to encourage each other in hope!
    • We need to be close enough to each other to notice when we're losing hope
    • We need to be transparent enough to share when we're losing hope
    • We need to be rooted in hope ourselves so we can point people to Jesus
D. Think About Heaven
  • New Christian: following Jesus is hard! Don't believe the lies that tell you it's going to be easy!
  • Suffering Christian: If you truly understand that you belong to God in life and death, you know that the suffering of this life is working for you an eternal weight of glory!
    • We complain when we suffer because we're too short-sighted
 
C.S. Lewis 
A continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do.
 
It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is.
 
If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next.
 
The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven.
 
It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.”
 
What is our only hope in life and death?
That we are not our own but belong, body and soul, both in life and death, to God and to our Savior Jesus Christ.
 
Christ Our Hope, in life and in death, we cast ourselves on your merciful, Fatherly care. You love us because we are your own. We have no good apart from you, and we could ask for no greater gift than to belong to you. Amen.