12-3-2015

        Good Morning All!!     

          Psalm 39:7; “And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?  My hope is in you.”

    It was a gospel genre song that was originally entitled “The Immutable Basis for a Sinner’s Hope.”  Even in 1834, this was not something that many people would grab hold of.  So Pastor Edward Mote changed the name to “My Hope is built on Nothing Less.”  This hymn has gone on to be one of the most beloved hymns written and has had many alternative tunes and settings.  Its popularity has never diminished.  Sinners have hope.  Yet why, where does it come from?

    Hope is a tricky thing.  Too often we speak of hope only in hopeless situation.  When the hometown football team is behind by 020 points and only two minutes to go in the game, we “hope” for a comeback.  It might even be somewhat of a wish as we “hope” like when a child hopes for a pony for Christmas.  Yet this is not true hope.  True hope is built on an expectation; it is an expectation for something good in the future.  It is built on something outside of ourselves.  It is built on the truth of past events which have occurred and point to future events as well.  We see that our hope for the future is based on past events.  Our hope for our faith is based solidly on the promises of God, made to his people and to all mankind; that God has kept through the ages.  We see how God promised a son to Abraham and how he kept that promise.  God promised to deliver the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt and how he kept that promise using Moses.  We see throughout the Old Testament as God promised to send a Savior, the Messiah, to redeem his people and we see how God sent Jesus to be that Savior.  Because of these kept promises, we can have hope; we can have the expectation that God will keep his promises in the future.

   God has promised us eternal life with him; God has promised to always be with us and that we are now his people.  We can see how God’s past actions have given us the certainty of our hope in his promises of tomorrow and this can now shape our present life.  Because now we have hope and we are a people of hope.  We share in that hope, that certainty of our salvation, along with other people who have this same hope.  We grow and become a community of people who have hope. We fear nothing and we lack nothing; we live with the confidence, the faith, that our future is secure in God’s loving arms.  So we can have peace knowing we are secure in God’s loving arms and we can be joyful in that we are able to live the life that God has given to us with a trusting heart.

    We have hope that God will fulfil his wonderful promise of salvation and life eternal.   We have the comfort of this truth as we face the challenges of today.  Live in his eternal hope for salvation has come and is ours forever.

Father of all hope, in you an in you alone do we have hope.  Lead us to trust in your wonderful love and grace.  Enable us to do your will as we continue on our journey.  Keep us safe in your loving arms.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret