Set Your Hope - Sermon Outline

Embracing Hope in Turbulent Times

We need to know about the hope that is connected with our calling. How God has worked in the past to secure it. How God is working in the present to guide us through. How God will be working in the future to bring us home. How many of you have a sense of foreboding regarding this year? How did we handle 2020? It was not pretty. As we approach what could be another tumultuous year — fraught with even more difficulty than 2020 — how can we prepare ourselves? Even if storm clouds are on the horizon or our nation crumbles, we can stand tall with hope … and bring glory to God.

1. Defining Hope

   1. It is the Christian’s attitude toward the future. It is belief in God. It is trusting in God. How is this different from faith? Faith accepts. Hope expects.

   2. Hope is something we owe God.

      1. 1 Peter 1:13: Therefore, with your minds ready for action, be sober-minded and set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

      2. If He has been faithful in the past, He will be in the present. If He is faithful in the present, He will be in the future.

   3. Hope for the future guided Paul.

      1. Philippians 3:13b-14: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.

      2. This type of thinking is expected of the Christian: let all of us who are mature think this way, Philippians 3.15.

   4. This world is not our home.

      1. Philippians 3:20: Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, … 

      2. No matter what happens here, we are citizens of the heavenly kingdom. 

2. Hope Glorifies God

   1. By affirming God is trustworthy

      1. 1 Peter 1.13: set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

      2. If we live like we can’t trust Him, in essence, we doubt, disbelieve, and deny God.

      3. But, by living in hope, that is, by making it an active part of our disposition, we demonstrate that God keeps His promises and the covenants He makes.

   2. The Example of Abraham

      1. It is in hope that we believe:

         1. 4.17b: the one who gives life to the dead and calls things into existence that do not exist.

         2. 4.18: in hope against hope, i.e., hope when, from every human perspective, there is no substance and no basis for hope.

      2. 4.20: He … was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God,

3. What are we to set our hope on?

   1. Christ’s 2nd coming, 1 Peter 1.13. We are to live in light of the second coming.

      1. 1 John 3:2: Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.

   2. Our hope is fixed on Jesus Christ.

   3. Our hope is fixed on the grace that will be brought to us

4. As We Close…

   1. 1 Peter 1.13a - get your mind ready for action. Let nothing distract you in this life.

   2. 1 Peter 1.13b - Be sober-minded.

   3. Where is your hope fixed?