BLESSED HOPE
1 Peter • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Jennifer Arnold was featured in a PBS documentary titled, “Through the Eyes of a Dog.” It chronicles her organization, which is involved in the training of service dogs and matching them with people in need. USA Today also told her story.
The service dogs help people with certain disabilities to do routine daily tasks, but they also provide something else. Arnold noticed how the dogs and humans bonded, often giving hope.
Arnold talks about a young child who told his mother that he didn’t want to live any more. Sometime during the camp that orients and matches dog to human, Arnold noticed the child’s mother crying. She thought they had failed. It was the opposite. The mother had asked the child if he still wanted to leave and go to heaven, he said, “I can’t leave my dog.”
While we know there is going to be great glory in heaven, our hearts still go out to those who have no joy or hope on earth. What had the child found that brought the hope? Was it the sense of responsibility and purpose? Was it the unconditional love of the dog? I guess we would have to ask the child. Either way, it was the hope that made this life worth living.
I. Living Hope
I. Living Hope
A. Hope that is born again.
A. Hope that is born again.
Begotten.
B. Hope is alive.
B. Hope is alive.
Hope that is alive, it’s not dead
C. Hope that brings life
C. Hope that brings life
Hope that brings life to those who possess it.
A little boy went grocery shopping with his mother and asked her to buy some chocolate chip cookies...
II. Eternal Hope
II. Eternal Hope
When Christopher Columbus was sailing to the new world, his hired sailors were threatening mutiny. The voyage was long and hard, and there was no land in sight for weeks. One day, Columbus saw an encouraging sign. Floating on the ocean swells was a small tree branch. The branches’ leaves were green, indicating land could not be far away. The green branch gave the sailors enthusiasm and a renewed hope. Soon after its discovery, land was sighted from the sailor in the crow’s nest.
When all seems hopeless God has a way of surprising us and being present, even in the loneliest places. It is not God who is absent but we who have ceased to believe in a God who loves us more than we love ourselves. (Keith Wagner, “Who Said Loving Others Was Easy?”
A. Incorruptible.
A. Incorruptible.
A man went to a cemetery for a burial. He arrived ahead of the procession, and as he waited for the arrival of others, he occupied himself reading the epitaphs. He saw one across the way that caught his attention. It said, “Death Is Eternal.” He thought that it was the most depressing thing he had ever seen on a tombstone, but when he went nearer he found that another stone had obscured part of that one. The full message was “Death Is Eternal Life.” If we let anything obscure the biblical view of life or death, we will be sadly and widely misled.
B. Undefiled
B. Undefiled
C. Unfading
C. Unfading
Its hard to imagine the vastness of eternity. Tony Evans said it this way, “ Imagine if we took the Pacific Ocean and drained it of all its water. Then, we took sand and filled it to the height of mount Everest (The tallest mountain on Earth). The amount of sand would be unimaginable. Then suppose we had a bird who would take one grain of sand an move it every 100 Billion years. When the last grain of sand had been removed, Congratulations, you just completed your first second of eternity.
III. Secure Hope
III. Secure Hope
In a bizarre turn of events, the bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix has ruled that countless Catholics must now re-do their sacrament of baptism.
Father Andres Arango resigned from St. Gregory Catholic Church in Phoenix after it was determined he used the words "We baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," instead of the correct phrase “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," according to Thomas J. Olmsted, the bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix.
Olmsted explained, "The issue with using ‘We’ is that it is not the community that baptizes a person, rather, it is Christ, and Him alone, who presides at all of the sacraments, and so it is Christ Jesus who baptizes," with the priest presumably acting as Christ’s surrogate to perform the sacrament.
The priest in question had performed hundreds, maybe thousands of baptisms over the course of his 20+ year career. But the Diocese determined that because he used the wrong word, "... all of the baptisms he has performed until June 17, 2021, are presumed invalid." He suggested this was a particularly serious error, since, according to the Catholic Church, "Baptism is a requirement for salvation."
"It saddens me to learn that I have performed invalid baptisms throughout my ministry as a priest by regularly using an incorrect formula,” said Father Arango.
APPLICATION
So, do all of these people whom Father Arango baptized now need a do-over? Well, if any of them actually believed that the validity of their baptism hinged on just how precisely a ritual was performed, then yes, they most certainly do -- not so that the priest can correct his words, but rather that they might correct their faith.
The Scriptures teach that if we have sincerely placed our trust in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus for the eternal salvation of our souls, then our salvation is eternally secure. There is no human “formula” which can either codify or nullify it.
This story illustrates just how tenuous it is to place one's confidence in rituals. But the good news is that it is our faith in Christ, not in the proper performance of rituals, that saves us.
"Those flood waters were like baptism that now saves you. But baptism is more than just washing your body. It means turning to God with a clear conscience, because Jesus Christ was raised from death" (1 Pet 3:21, CEV).
“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast” (Eph 2:8-9 NKJV).
A. Guarded Hope
A. Guarded Hope
The power of God
B. Prepared Hope
B. Prepared Hope
Its ready
C. Future hope
C. Future hope
It will be revealed in the last days.