Word of Salvation – Vol. 45 No. 02 – January 2000

 

A Sandwich of Hope

 

Sermon by Rev. R. Noppers on Titus 1:2-3

Scripture Readings: Titus 1

Suggested Hymns: BoW 316; 465; 419; 471:2, 4; 473; 322; 250

 

Beloved in the Lord.

What is your foundation?  Where is your hope?  Do you have a solid foundation for your faith?  Do you have the knowledge of the truth that leads to godliness?  Do you have a secure hope that provides impetus and motivation for all of your future, and assurance for everything in your past?

Because that is what this passage is all about: knowing that the God, who does not lie, promised you eternal life before the beginning of time!

The foundation on which Paul, as an apostle and servant of Christ, dares to step out in faith and spread the glorious gospel of salvation, is the hope of eternal life!  The faith that motivates Paul is based upon a certainty that goes beyond anything earthly!

For our faith is never based on some moment of emotion: a highlight from which we measure the rest of our spiritual existence.  The Christian life cannot survive on the wave of emotion.

Faith involves a life of daily loving Christ more and understanding Him better.  Faith is always based upon what God has done, and what He is doing and continues to do for you!

After all, when God gives you and me faith, He gives eternal, abundant life!  Life in which Jesus Christ lives again!  Life that begins when you believe; that goes on forever!  Life that is more than just an intellectual knowledge but life that bubbles out of the brain and into the hands and the feet and the mouth!

This is the sort of life that enables us to cope with each of the different moments of life!  It is the hope of eternal life, which we know for certain to be a reality now, that equips us to discharge our responsibilities to God and our fellow man!

What the apostle Paul talks about is the life of God who lives in us and enables us to live His life in every situation!  Now that is hope: not some wishy-washy concept, but as solid as the ground on which we stand!  As solid as the God who is the rock of all ages!

Our hope is never determined by how strong we feel on a particular day or at a particular time.  But it is based upon the God of truth!

Our foundation is a sandwich of hope; guaranteed by a promise made before the world began by God Himself, and stretched across the eternity of life in heaven!

For this God, our God, does not lie! – as is declared in Hebrews 6:17- 18, "Because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of His purpose very clear to the heirs of what was promised, He confirmed it with an oath.  God did this so that, by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled to take hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged."

And also in 1 Samuel 15:29, "He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change His mind; for He is not a man, that He should change His mind."

We are sandwiched in the middle of a certainty of hope, before the beginning of time, stretched to the ends of eternity, and assured by the promise of a God who does not lie!

Do you sense the full assurance that is sustained by this: the Word of our God?  After all, the intent of the gospel is not just to provide us with faith, or just believing that which we cannot see, but also to give us hope.  Our faith is based on more than just wishful thinking.  Our trust is grounded in more than sinking sand.  Our faith instead stands firmly on the rock of our salvation, Jesus Christ, and God's promise to save us before the world began!

We all know our focus is not to be in this world, nor in this time and place with all its struggles and burdens!  We are but pilgrims on a journey, passing through to a better place.  And what the apostle Paul does right from the start is take our hearts and minds away from this world and raise them to the certainty of the heavens and to things above!

And so the faith that Paul speaks of, a faith that allows us to commit ourselves to God and declare His ownership of us as our godliness grows, is a faith that leads to eternal life!  It is this hope that gives our faith new life!  It is this hope that brings our faith to new heights!

There is no stronger assurance than this!  After all, our God, the one who saved us, who cannot lie, has said it!  It is the honour of God Himself that is placed before us as the security for our faith.  It is the honour of the Almighty that is set down as the deposit concerning our eternal inheritance!  And since God places His seal of approval upon this Word, He is the One who is responsible to make it all come to pass!

How much comfort do you receive from these promises of God?  Is your treasure laid up in the heavens, where God is?  Is your past and future firmly bound with Him who spoke from the beginning and caused this world to be?  Is your hope tied up with Him who said: You are mine, even before you were conceived?  Is your only comfort in life and death in the one whose plan of salvation for you was fully determined before you were even a twinkle in your parents' eye?

This hope is an earnest yearning, a confident expectation, and a patient waiting for life everlasting – as it says in Romans 8:25, "But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

This is the hope of salvation in its fullest development!  As Jesus describes it in John 17:24, "Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”

This is real treasure!  This is valuable beyond calculation!  This is the priceless treasure that this whole world is seeking: the certainty of life today and life tomorrow and life forever!

Let's not lose sight of this as we seek to give our families and our children the best that this life has to offer, as we take them to their sports and provide for their music and buy them wonderful clothes!  Let us make sure that the hope of Jesus Christ and the life He brings is never overshadowed by the priorities we live in our life today!

As is written in a recent issue of Trowel & Sword: "In our diligence to provide for this life, parents are forsaking the very best opportunity they have to provide for their children's eternal future!"

For as we have received it, so we also have this new rich kind of life to offer!  First to our children, to each other, but also to the world around us!  Life that goes beyond today and all its worries!  Life that looks past the struggles each person faces and sees the future, bright with hope!"  Life that lightens up even the darkest and gloomiest of existences with the immeasurable brightness of the love of God!

Do you know of anyone who deep in his or her heart would not want to have some of that, too?  Can you think of any person, struggling in this world of sin, who would not want to share in God's life?  Eternal life?

Are you willing to step in faith with the certainty of hope that has been declared to you and offer the power of God for all the frustrations of humanity?  Are you willing to declare God's truth of life for all the guesses of humanity?  To transform the unrest in this day and age with the serenity that comes from knowing God?

Are you willing to share the goodness of God's forgiveness for all our failures?  To be a part of God's comfort for all this world's sorrows?

Take pride in such a privilege!  As it has been freely given to you, so freely give!  As the gospel gives you such certain hope, extend that hope!

Take pride in the product you are able by the grace of God to give away for free, the salvation of mankind and the glorious hope of eternal life, and you will find many are urgently seeking to find the same rest you have so wonderfully experienced!  After all, nothing is greater than the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And all of us, young or old, are expected to serve the Lord and Saviour of our life: for it is an honour to do so!

The glorious fact that the proclamation of the good news concerning life everlasting has actually been entrusted to such as unworthy as us should be enough to make our hearts overflow with gratitude and offer ourselves in renewed service to God!

Let's take up the honour of proclaiming the promises, made from antiquity, that are solid, stable, and sure, unchangeable; and declare to all who will listen that they have indeed come to pass!  For God's announcement of this Word of salvation to mankind – to you and me – has been openly made!

In the proper time, as Galatians 4:4-7 states, "But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons.  Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, 'Abba, Father.'  So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir."

Do you need any further confirmation of the reliability of the promises of God?

The gospel message has been declared for all the world to see, the announcement was nailed to the cross: "Here is the King of the Jews!"  Truer words were never written!

The display of His love and grace was so clearly made at Calvary: on a canvas stained with blood God painted His glorious picture of love!  God prepared the history of the world for the appropriate moment of the revelation of His grace!

The words of salvation were spoken in the tongues of men and of angels, so that each one heard the wonderful saving grace of God in his own language and could not misunderstand it!  With weary feet and hearts aglow the gospel has been clearly preached ever since!  For Jesus is the living message of God who is active in saving us, from before the beginning of time to the very ends of eternity!

As Ephesians 1:3-5, and 9-10 describes so beautifully, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  For He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight...  And He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfilment – to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.”

God's grace was given to you, to me, and to all who believe, already before time began.  2 Timothy 1:9 leaves us in no doubt: "the power of God... who has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.  This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel."

And with God's grace comes life everlasting!  Before the ages began to roll along in their seemingly endless courses, before the world even began, grace was given to you and to me and life was promised!

For when our God decides to call into existence a people to be His treasured possession, the fulfilment of that decree is so certain that the grace of which God speaks His promises is so certain as if you have already received it, and the promise of eternal life is so sure that it is as if you already live in it!

The covenant of redemption was a covenant made from eternity, and in it was enshrined the promise of God the Father to the Son that all the elect who have been given to the Son by the Father would indeed receive their inheritance! – the inheritance of life everlasting in all its glory!

And the God who promised and gave us salvation is also the God who promised and will give us eternal life!  If He can do the one, there is no doubt He can and will do the other!

So, have you worked it out yet?  Are you able to profess with your mouth and believe with your heart that you have been saved from eternity?

Is your foundation the hope of eternal life?  The fact that the God who does not lie promised your eternal life before time itself began?

That is our only foundation!  Our only confession!  And the world's one true hope!

Amen.