Romans 15:13 “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.”
The Apostle refers to God as the God of hope. The word hope means a feeling of expectation and desire for certain thing to happen. It’s also a feeling of trust. Hope means to cherish a desire with anticipation or to want something to happen or to be true. It’s a desire that’s accompanied by expectation of, or belief in fulfillment. It’s the expectation of fulfillment or success.
Who are we supposed to place are hope and trust in? Obviously not ourselves. Our hope must be fully placed in the risen Lord, Jesus Christ. The scriptures are filled with examples of people who placed their faith and hope in God. Think of Moses and the Israelites. Moses had so much hope in God, that he knew God would deliver them, even when their backs were up against the wall of the Red Sea . He KNEW God would deliver them, and God did. He is the God of HOPE.
Think about young David who went up against a warrior who was huge, named Goliath. David didn’t place his hope and trust in himself. He didn’t place is faith or trust in shiny armor. He knew that God had delivered him out of many situations in his life, and he knew God could deliver Goliath into his hands, and that’s exactly what God did. God is a God of HOPE.
Daniel was cast down into a lion’s den, he put his hope and trust fully in God to deliver him, and you know what? God did It! God is a God of hope. I want you to read a passage you’re from the scripture that really illustrates misplaced hope.
James 4:13-16 “Go to now, ye that say, To day or to morrow we will go into such a city, and continue there a year, and buy and sell, and get gain: Whereas ye know not what your be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away. For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that. But now ye rejoice in your boastings: all such rejoicing is evil.
No mention of the Lord delivering in those statements. It’s hope that is misplaced because it is placed in yourself. I remember years ago that they used to make a bracelet that said “fully rely on God.” That, my friends, is biblical hope in our risen Lord, Jesus Christ.
Jeremiah 17:7 “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” Do you realize the hope that it took in God to place little baby Moses in a basket on a river to save him? She had hope that God would deliver him. You know what, God did. There are so many examples of hope in the scripture but real hope needs to be Christ-centered, instead of man-centered. We need to abide in hope.
1 Cor 13:13 “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity.” It is the Lord that fights our battles for us. We wait on Him and His mighty hand to deliver us, like so many other prophets and men of God have done, not only in the past, but in the present, and will do again in the future. Psalm 39:7 “And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.”
My hope is in you, O Lord. Deliver Us.
With love Eric
Teufer Lake King James Bible Church 