đź’ Consider this: How does this hope shape the way you live your daily life? In what ways do you need to grow in living with a greater awareness of God’s heavenly promises, rather than being consumed by earthly concerns?
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📣 How does hope produce faith and love? 🤔 The believers in Colossae were known for their faith in Christ and their love for one another. But what fueled their steadfastness? It was the hope laid up for them in heaven—the unshakable promise of eternity with Christ. This hope is not wishful thinking but a living reality, anchored in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Without it, life’s pursuits are fleeting, and its struggles seem endless. But through the Gospel, we receive a promise that transcends this life: an incorruptible inheritance, reserved for us by God. This same hope should shape our lives today, compelling us to live with the same faith and love that marked the Colossians. In this sermon, we’ll explore how a heavenward hope transforms our daily walk, strengthens our faith, and stirs us to love others as Christ loved us. Let’s rediscover the power of this eternal hope and how it should define the way we live.
📄 Follow along with this sermon's transcript: Coming soon…
đź“ŤÂ Sermon Outline 00:00 Trailer 01:58 Introduction 06:45 I. IT IS SECURED ETERNALLY 26:03 II. IT IS A TRUTHFUL PROMISE 37:22 III. IT IS UNIVERSAL 39:00 Conclusion 44:49 Reflection Questions
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Highlights
In fact, faith, love, and hope are three vital components of the Christian virtues, and all of them are intertwined and connected to one another. It is the faith of the Christian, who believes in his heart the Lord Jesus Christ, that leads him to love the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his mind; to love his neighbour as himself; and even to love his enemies, to bless them that curse him, to do good to them that hate him, and to pray for them that despitefully use him and persecute him.
And both faith and love are based on the word hope.
Take a moment and consider this: If there is no such thing as life after death, no eternal life, no resurrection, no heaven, and this is the only life we have—when we die, everything is finished—then our hope is based on this temporal life, whether it be 70, 80, or 90 years. And if that is the case, then you and I should just live every moment for ourselves, eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we may just die, and everything is gone.
Such a hope is no hope at all.
Someone once said that the word useless is one of the most dreadful words in the English language. To be called useless is a terrible thing. However, I believe that the most dreadful word is not useless but hopeless. Useless may be bad enough, but a useless person may someday still become useful. Without hope, there's nothing left. If there is no hope, all is lost.
1 Peter 1:3-4
"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you."
Notice Peter calls it a lively hope, which means it transcends life. And it is secured by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
It is this lively hope that enables us to be willing to sacrifice the present for something we will receive in the future.
We all know that young children have a difficult time waiting for something they want. So as parents, we have to warn them repeatedly not to sacrifice their future for something that is immediate.
But that is how the world behaves. The world wants what it wants now. Give it to me now!
But as Christians, we have a different perspective. We are willing to forsake the comfort, enjoyment, and pleasures of this present world for the future glory that is ours in Christ Jesus.
Everything we have in this fallen world grows old. They will wear out. But what God has in store for us in heaven—our eternal inheritance—will not be destroyed, it will not be defiled, and it will never grow old.