Well, thank you Blue Grace for your ministry this morning at Grace. And I want you to know that they've got tapes and CDs available out there. Before the last person gets out that door, I want somebody to save me a tape and a CD because I get tied up in here and I don't want them to disappear before I get there. All right? All right. Thank you.
There's no legend that tells of an angel who was sent by God to inform the devil that God was going to take away from him all of the tools and methods that he was using to defeat his children. The devil pleaded with the angel just to keep one method. He said, let me keep depression. Well, the angel, thinking that was a modest request, agreed to it. When he was gone, the devil laughed to himself and exclaimed, good, with that one gift, I have secured everything.
In his book, Depression, What It Is and What to Do About It, Roger Barrett describes this condition as, quote, a miserable, wretched experience that leaves you exhausted, uninvolved, and in deep, hopeless despair. There seems to be absolutely nowhere to turn and not one single thing you can do to escape these horrible feelings. You feel doomed, trapped, and at the end of your rope. Do you feel something like that this morning? All of us, from time to time, deal with depression.
For some of us, it is a severe trial. One of England's finest preachers was Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He died just over 100 years ago at the age of 58. Many people still remember him as the prince of preachers, but few people remember that Charles Spurgeon was given to bouts with severe depression. One of his biographers wrote, what he suffered in those times of darkness we may not know. Even his desperate calling on God brought no relief.
Spurgeon said about those times himself, there are dungeons beneath the castles of despair. There are dungeons beneath the castle of despair. I believe that the greater enemy of mankind is not disease, but despair. Because you can live without tonsils, you can get by with one lung, you can have your gallbladder removed, but no one can live without hope. See Neil Strait wrote, take from a man his wealth and you hinder him. Take from him his purpose and you slow him down.
But take from man his hope and you stop him. He can go on without wealth and even without purpose for a while, but he will not go on without hope. You and I are living in a civilization that is collapsing into the ruins of secularism and rationalism. We live in a culture of despair and hopelessness and no one knows that better than our leaders. No people can endure such hopelessness as is coming upon the western civilization.
The good news is that the more desperate and dark the world becomes, the brighter the Christian message shines. For our gospel is about hope. The apostle Paul writes of it in Colossians 1 when he refers to the hope of the gospel that you have heard. He also calls it the hope laid up for you in heaven of which you previously heard in the word of truth the gospel which has come to you. The gospel is about hope.
The New Testament idea of hope denotes an expectation of obtaining some good thing that is desired. Hope is an expectation of what is to come. God's people have everything to look forward to because for God's people the best is yet to come. That's why the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians about the hope of salvation. Talking about the culminating part of our salvation when we are taken home to be with Jesus. The hope of our salvation.
However rather than looking at Paul this morning we want to look at Peter for our message on hope and I invite you to turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 verse 15. Peter wrote to suffering saints who were being persecuted for their faith and their godly conduct in a pagan culture. Those people lived in a culture without hope much like our own. But four times in this epistle Peter speaks of hope. One of them is chapter 3 verse 15. Sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts.
Always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you yet with gentleness and reverence. The Christian you see has a hope within him. You and I possess a unique hope, one that is highly valued. So I say to you and to myself today let us be careful of ever underrating the worth of the hope that Jesus Christ has brought to us. I want you to notice with me how Peter describes the Christian hope.
As I say there are four times that he uses the word hope. The first one is in chapter 1 verse 3. He begins his book with this wonderful outburst of praise to God when he says, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Now there are several descriptions of the hope of the Christian. Paul calls it the good hope, 2 Thessalonians 2.16.
He calls it the blessed hope, Titus 2.13. The writer of Hebrews calls it the better hope, Hebrews 7.19. Peter calls our hope the living hope. That is because the hope that we have in Jesus Christ relates to life, real life. You see our hope emanates from the new birth. Notice that Peter uses that phrase now overused often in our world, born again. We often attribute that phrase to John because it says in John chapter 3, you must be born again.
But literally what John says is you must be born from above. Only Peter truly uses the phrase born again twice in this verse and in verse 23. And here he says we have been born again. That is God has infused new life into us resulting in a new nature and that is the sinner's need. You don't help a blind man by giving him more light. You don't help a dead man by giving him an expensive funeral. What he needs is life. What a blind man needs is sight. And what the sinner needs is to be born again.
He needs life from God. That is what the new birth is about. And that new birth he says is made possible by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Notice he mentions the death of Christ, that he died. And he makes it clear in this book that he died for our sins. He died in our place on the cross. And then he was raised up from the dead as we heard sung about this morning in this beautiful bluegrass music. He was raised from the dead. He is alive today.
And because of the resurrection you and I can be born again. God can impart to us his very life and his nature. The Christian hope flows from the resurrection. It is a living hope. All of us I think were touched this summer when we learned that Mickey Mantle had a serious liver disease. And then we found out that he had cancer of the liver and would die shortly. What we have not heard reported in the general press I read in a Christian publication this last week.
And while he was on his deathbed in Texas, one of his former teammates, Bobby Richardson, who is now a preacher, went to visit him. And Bobby Richardson explained to Mickey Mantle his need to be saved. And Mickey Mantle prayed to receive Christ as his Savior. Mrs. Richardson then asked Mickey, Mickey what are you going to say to God? And he asks you why should I let you into my heaven? You know what Mickey Mantle said? For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.
That whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life. He quoted John 3.16. That's the right answer by the way. You see Mickey Mantle found a living hope. It's very sad that it came on his deathbed but thank God it came before he died. Do you have this living hope in Jesus Christ? You see the Christian hope flows from the resurrection. It's all about life. The life that you can have in Christ through the new birth experience. You say well so what?
So what if the Christian's hope flows from the resurrection? Peter tells us in verse 6. He says in this you greatly rejoice. That's what I want to say to you. Be glad. Be glad. You know this music that we heard this morning is happy music. It's a music about hope and you know why? It originated with people who had nothing of this world. Therefore they really rejoiced in the hope that they had in the future. And I say to you our hope rests upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Let us be glad about that and rejoice in it. Verse 13 gives us the second occasion for the word hope. Here Peter writes therefore gird your minds for action. Keep sober in spirit. Fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Second thing we learn here about Christian hope is that it welcomes the future. You see hope is future oriented by its nature. We don't hope for the past. We don't hope for the present. It's already here.
We hope for the future. The Christian's future is linked with the culminating prophetic event of the last days and that is the coming of Jesus Christ again. What Peter calls his revelation. Now we do not see him Peter says and certainly the world does not see him. But Peter points to a day in the future when he will be unveiled. He will be revealed to the world. You see Christian hope welcomes the future because it knows what the future holds. Some people try to go back to the future.
Some people deny there is a future. Others dread the future or try to create the future or run from the future. But the Christian embraces the future because we know that the future comes to us from God's hand. That's why in 1 Corinthians chapter 3 the apostle Paul says that among other things that I don't have time to mention this morning. He says among other things the future belongs to you in Jesus Christ. The future does. The past does as well and the present.
But the future we don't know what it holds. We don't know what tomorrow holds. But we know who holds it don't we? Our hope embraces the future. We're not afraid of it. For whatever tomorrow holds we know that ultimately it brings us to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. We anticipate what the future holds. And so Peter says set your hope completely on that. Plant it there. Set your flag as it were on the future for God's plan will be unveiled as the future is unveiled.
There's a third use of the word hope and it's found in verse 21 where Peter says, chapter 1 verse 21 where Peter says, you who threw him are believers in God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory so that your faith and hope are in God. The third thing we see about Christian hope is that it rests upon the eternal. That's unique. Other kinds of hope rest upon books that have been written by men that come and go.
Other hopes rest upon gurus that come into town for seminars and then leave and go somewhere else. But our hope rests upon God, says Peter. It rests upon the eternal. We have absolute and complete security that what God has undertaken, he the eternal one will finish. In Hebrews chapter 6 there's a wonderful word picture of this hope. I invite you to look at that. I'm going to begin reading in verse 18 of Hebrews 6.
The writer says, by two unchangeable things that is God's promise and God's oath, by these two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we may have strong encouragement. If you're in those dungeons beneath the castle of despair this morning, look at what God says. We may have strong encouragement. We who have fled for refuge in laying hold of the hope set before us.
This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil where Jesus has entered as a forerunner for us. It's a wonderful picture here of our hope, taking hold of the hope. You fishermen, go out and find your favorite fishing hole. And of course it's always got lots of fish in there. And so when you find that hole, what do you do?
You put the anchor over so that that boat will stay right there on top of that school of fish that you're trying to catch. You want that boat to be stable and steadfast to remain there. The picture here is of an anchor that we have for our hope. And he says that rope that we hang onto, Jesus has the other end of it. There where the anchor is.
Jesus has picked up that anchor and he has taken it behind the veil into the very presence of God and has hooked that anchor around the throne of God, the mercy seat. You and I have a hope that is anchored not in the mud of some lake nor in the passing teaching of some guru. But our hope is anchored to the very throne of the eternal God. It is sure and unshakable. Peter says our Christian hope rests upon God. Some of us remember another old song that used to be sung.
It's not in our hymnal, the one we currently have. But a hundred years ago, because traveling by water was a very common way to travel, many of the hymns developed that theme. You remember this one? Though the angry surges roll on my tempest-driven soul, I am peaceful. For I know wildly though the winds may blow, I've an anchor, safe and sure, that can ever more endure. Many tides about me sweep, perils lurk within the deep, angry clouds or shade the sky, and the tempest rises high.
Still I stand the tempest shock, for my anchor grips the rock. Troubles almost whelm the soul, griefs like billows o'er me roll, tempters seek to lure astray, storms obscure the light of day. But in Christ I can be bold, I've an anchor that shall hold, and it holds, my anchor holds. The Christian hope rests upon God, not upon a church, not upon some preacher, but upon God, the eternal God. Now in chapter 3 verse 15 we come full circle to the last occasion when Peter uses this term hope.
And he tells us here that the Christian hope engages the world. You see to live with hope in a fallen world, overcome with despair, is to live so distinctly, so differently, as to create curiosity in the people who watch you. If your life shows a willingness to suffer mistreatment for Christ's sake, and to sacrifice the immediate for the sake of gaining the eternal, you cannot help but be noticed in a world that has no hope.
For in a world that has no hope, you get what you can while you can get it. But a person who works in an office, or a neighbor who lives down the street, or a friend in the school, who says I'm willing to endure hardship in this life for Christ's sake. I'm willing to forego what would please me now in order that I may please God and gain what is eternal. I'll tell you that person is going to stand out. That's the kind of people.
Peter was writing to, and so he said, always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you an account for the hope that is in you. Really what he says is be ready to give an apology. We use that word to mean I'm sorry. Will you forgive me? That isn't how Peter was using it. This Greek word refers to a defense. It's the kind of a word that would describe the work of a defense attorney. The Lord knows we've seen enough defense attorneys on television to understand what they do.
It's the work of a defense attorney who stands before the judge to defend his cause, his client. And what he says is that you and I are to be ready to defend our profession of hope in Jesus Christ. So that whenever somebody says, why do you live that way? Why did you make that choice? Why do you have those values? You're ready to say something. You're ready to make your defense to them. And to say I believe in Jesus Christ. I have a hope that is living.
I have a hope that is anchored to the eternal. You see that kind of a hope engages the world. And so what? Well Peter says share it. Let others know about your hope. Don't hide it under a bushel. Stand at that flagpole. Go to that prayer meeting. Don't be ashamed to bow your head in prayer over your lunch. If you're with somebody else, say to them, it's my custom to pray before I eat. May I pray for both of us? You know I've never had one unsafe person ever turn me down on that.
Probably because he's afraid I'm going to ask him to lead in prayer for both of us if I, he says no. We've got not to be ashamed of the values that we have. Because they're right. They're eternal. They're what's pleasing to God. And that stands out. So if you're a Christian today, and I hope you are, if you've been born again and you have new life from God and a new nature within you, the hope that you have is a singular hope. There's nothing like it in all the world.
You can go to any religion you want to. You can go to any philosophy you want to. You'll not find a hope like the one I've just described to you. So we ought to rejoice in our hope. We ought to revel in it. We ought to celebrate it. We ought to treasure it. And we ought to plant our flag. We ought to fix our hope on the grace that is to be brought to us when Jesus comes. We ought to live out our Christian hope with godly conduct because we are related to the eternal God.
We ought to share our Christian hope with courtesy and respect and gentleness and with a clear conscience. But I recognize that there are likely some here today whose hope is dimmed. And when we talk about the Christian hope, you're saying, well, that hope is not very bright in my own life right now. And let me say to you that it's time to recover what's dimmed. It's time to turn up the lamp.
If the struggle you're facing is slowly replacing your hope with despair, or the process is long and you're losing your song in the night, you can be sure that the Lord has His hand on you. Safe and secure, He will never abandon you. You are His treasure. And He finds pleasure in you. He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. There were dark days in World War II in Britain.
I can't imagine living in that period of time in London, the city burning down, hiding deep below the streets from the bombers of Germany. Despair overwhelmed the British people, except for one man whose name was Winston Churchill, who was the Prime Minister of England. And largely single-handedly, that man lifted the British people out of gloom and despair, gave them hope that the war could be won. And he spoke to them time after time saying things like, never give up. Never give up.
And the British people who were so low and the hope was so dim for their nation, listen. And they got a hold of it. And hope resurfaced and they won the war. I don't know how dim your hope may be today, but we have a Savior. We have a Savior who is able to lift you from the slew of despond. He is able to lift you out of the discouragement and the depression that you feel. He is able to cause that hope to burn brightly again in your heart.
Peter says, sanctify Christ as Lord. That is, set him apart as Lord in your hearts. You know, when we do that, our hope cannot be dimmed. We may feel like it's dimming, but it isn't dimming, because Christ the Lord is reigning there. I read something this week about a man I've admired for years that I never knew. His name was Reuben Archer Torrey. He was president of the Moody Bible Institute for a number of years. He was also one of the founders of Biola in California.
As a young man, he had no faith in God, though. He did not believe in the Bible. His mother was a devout Christian, and often she would pray for his conversion and witness to him. One day he said to her, I don't want to hear about my sins or your prayers. I'm going to leave and not bother you anymore. He did not heed her pleas. He did not listen to her cries. He paid no attention to her tear-filled eyes. As he went out the door, she frantically cried after him, Son, you are going the wrong way.
But when you come to the end of your rope and everything seems hopeless, call upon your mother's God with all your heart, and he will surely help you. Torrey left home and went deeper into the ways of sin. One night he was alone in a hotel and unable to sleep. His problems were pressing upon his mind. Then he remembered a gun that he kept in his dresser drawer and decided that he would kill himself. He was so miserable.
But just as he reached for the weapon, his mother's last words came to his mind. The Holy Spirit convicted him. He fell down on his knees beside that chair and cried out, Oh God of my mother, if there is such a being, I need your help. If you will help me now, I will follow you. And just in a moment, the darkness of his soul left and his heart was filled with peace.
He became an outstanding evangelist in the last part of the last century, the early part of this century, preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ with thousands coming to faith. If today you are in that despair, will you get on your knees and cry out to God and receive Jesus Christ, set him apart as Lord in your heart, believe that he died for your sins and rose again, and he will bring to you a living hope. Let's bow together as we pray. Father, my prayer is very simple.
It is that each of us may know this hope that is in Christ before we leave here. Father, there may be some who need to receive Christ as Savior. I pray that they will today open their hearts and believe on him and be saved. I pray that they may experience the new birth. I pray for those of us who have experienced that new birth, but in whom hope has faded for whatever reason. Would you restore us today to the brightness of the Christian hope that we have?
May our lives tell the difference and use us, I pray, in this dark and hopeless world to bear the message of the gospel of hope. With our heads bowed, if there is some response in your heart that you need to make to the Lord, will you do it right now? Asking Christ to come into your heart to save you, will you believe on him? Or as a Christian, will you do what Peter says here? By the Lord Jesus, as the Lord of your life, the Lord of your heart, live it out.
Oh Father, I give thanks for the hope that is in Christ. I pray that as we go from here this day, our lives may burst with celebration of the hope that we have in him, for the hope that is laid up before us, the hope of glory. Would you stand with me please? And now may the God of hope fill our lives with that hope, to the glory of Jesus Christ so that we may live that hope before a despairing world and point them to Jesus. In his name I pray, amen.