HOPE IS THE PLAN

It was just before the start of the second half of one of the NFL Wild Card games when I was in the kitchen looking for a snack and I heard Kevin Burkhardt ask Tom Brady “what do you tell these fans who are really defeated? What can this team do to give them a little hope?” To which Tom said: Well, hope isn’t a plan Kevin!

Honestly, I didn’t hear a single thing after that! All I could think is that as a follower of Christ, HOPE IS THE PLAN. Hope is my plan! Hope is the very core of the plan. Now I get what he was saying but it really illustrated the difference between how the world applies the word hope and how we as Christians look at Hope.

There is so much going on, even within this church body that Satan is using to take our focus off of Jesus and put it squarely on everything that is happening right here in front of us. Health issues, mourning and grieving, economic struggles, family conflict, disappointments and frustrations, natural disasters, and plane crashes and wars, and politics….It’s overwhelming because of the sheer volume and if you’re dealing with just one of those things in your life personally, it’s all consuming. So I don’t bring up what you are dealing with to make light of it or diminish the reality of your struggle. I I bring it up because it is essential to deal with all of that stuff in your life in the right order. We’re going to get practical on this in just a second but if you don’t take anything else away from this devotional, remember to cling to your Savior, your Salvation, your HOPE first.

The word HOPE is found throughout Scripture. It refers to our salvation, it refers to Jesus, it refers to a present and a future with Him. You want to see it for yourself? Go to the concordance in your Bible and look up the word Hope. It’s all throughout scripture. Hope is a theme that runs throughout our old hymns. It’s found in our modern worship songs. Our prayers are full of hope from a new believer’s initial prayer of salvation to the most difficult prayers of a ‘seasoned’ saint.

Everything about our faith comes down to hope because that hope is placed in the unmoveable, unshakable, ever present and never changing Holy God who allowed his only son to be tortured and killed for you and me. He didn’t have to do any of it and yet he did ALL of it for me. For you.

Take a look at 1 Peter 1 v 13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Let me make this a little more encouraging for you…..Therefore, In light of this amazing gift of Salvation…..Therefore in light of what was done for you on the Cross, Therefore, being completely awestruck by an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and never fading….therefore considering what is being kept in Heaven for You….

Therefore set your HOPE FULLY on the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Place your hope in that day….Today may be full of tough decisions, bad diagnoses, or words you regret saying. Today may have a full range of emotions from Joy to Anger and from Elation to Sadness. Today you can be at peace in one moment and full of anxiety the next but when your hope is set on Christ…When it’s set on the cross and God’s grace…when your hope is set on what awaits you in Heaven, everything else will be second.

Right now you might be saying, that’s great…I want to do that! But how? Where do I start? I need something tangible. How do I fix my hope on Jesus when I don’t feel like I have any hope at all?. How do I fix my hope on that Future with Jesus? How do I fix my hope on that Grace?

Go back to 1 Peter and look at the middle: Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Setting your hope fully on Christ requires you to Prepare your mind for action: literally this is translated as ‘girding up the loins of your mind’ gathering up all this material (robes) and tie it around your waist so you can move freely. Having your hope in the right place requires more than good intentions. It means you are ready to fight. Faith and holiness require you to be prepared for war and that you not let anything encumber you.

Where does the fight begin?…it’s in our mind….and this isn’t just about sin…it’s about whatever we are dwelling on. It’s about what thoughts consume us This is why Paul says in Corinthians (10:5) that we are to take Every THOUGHT captive and why he says in Romans we seek transformation not by renewing our actions but by renewing OUR MINDS.

Setting your hope fully on Christ requires a mental preparedness called Sober-Mindedness This is the opposite of drunkenness. Think about what an intoxicated person is like. Perception is skewed, He doesn’t think clearly and is not fully in control of his actions or his desires. He might be a danger to himself or others. He’s irrational and unpredictable. He’s all over the place without focus. He’s unable to accept wise counsel. Someone who is sober minded has their focus set on Christ. A sober minded individual is 100% in tune with Christ. They are serious about it. John Piper said: To be sober-minded is not to be somber or cynical. It is to be seriously awake to the most joyful realities in life.

Being sober minded means you are living with an eternal view….an eternal filter. Think of it this way…if God is telling you that you have a place in eternity, then he is also telling you that you have all the Grace you need to get there.

Finally, why doesn’t Peter just tell us to set our hope on the Grace that will be brought to us? What does he say? Set your hope FULLY on grace that will be brought to us! Why does he say FULLY? Because we so easily place our hope on grace AND something else. Good deeds, family, health, church, bank account, our job. We have such divided minds and loyalties. It’s so easy for us to put our trust in Jesus AND something else. Peter is reminding us to be “all in”

The people Peter wrote this letter to had given up everything for their faith. They lost everything by worldly human standards. To them, Peter’s call to a full hope in a future security was all they could hold on to. We also face uncertainty and loss in this life. But we don’t place our hope in this life. Rather, we place it fully on the future grace that awaits us.