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Stage 3: Level 2 - Class 1
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Copyright © 1998 P.F.(Simon) Measures
It's easy in this life to get disquieted over how things are. Things don't always go according to plan. You have moments when things don't seem to be turning out the way you would like them to.
How do you stop your soul (which is your mind, emotions and will) from getting distressed, disquieted and even distraught at this?
David, the psalmist and king, was a man with feelings, affections and a constitution like ours. He went through things very much like the things we go through. Nevertheless, he came out of it all victoriously. What was his secret? How did he do this?
David spoke to his soul. He would demand,
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.
Psalm 42:11 - NKJV.
David would enquire what right his soul had to be downcast and disquieted. Then he would command his soul to get back to hope in God.
Hope in God is the answer to your soul's weakness for getting distressed, disquieted and distraught.
Hope in God is the anchor for your soul. Hope anchors your soul in still waters.
In the book of the Hebrews we read,
That by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast.
Hebrews 6:18-19 - NKJV.
The hope of the gospel anchors your soul in still waters within the sphere of God's covenanted peace. Moved away from this anchor, the soul takes itself off into spheres of thought and activity far apart from the peace God has covenanted with us.
When the soul breaks away from the hope of the gospel, it fills with every kind of thought. These thoughts can get to be so noisy you can no longer hear the still, small voice of God within.
The still, small voice of God within your heart cannot be heard while your soul is racing in a state of disquiet and distraction. This is why you need the hope of the gospel actively at work anchoring your soul.
As a believer, you have been born again to hope.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again (born again) to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
1 Peter 1:3 - NKJV.
You have been born again to a living hope, literally a hope that is alive. This hope is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)
One of the first things friends and relatives notice about a newly born again believer is the hope he now has - this often disconcerts them. They see him with a fresh vision for life. He is wanting to do things he has never done before. He has a new zest and a new zeal.
This new believer has accepted Christ (the Anointed One) and he now has hope that is alive in him. He has come to life with it. He has the hope of glory.
You need to remember your own testimony. Just think of it. First you learnt of the hope of the gospel. Then, when you acted by faith on this hope of the gospel, you were brought to the hope of glory.
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Colossians 1:27 - NKJV.
Remember the hope of glory you came to know in those days when you were newly born again. Christ had come into your life. The knowledge of this gave you an exciting vision of your future with a confident expectation that you would enter into it.
This is what the hope of glory is. It is an expectant, inner vision of your life's future in glory.
The hope of glory was born into your life by the hope of the gospel. Your hope in God arose from the hope of the gospel.
Paul tells you not to be moved away from the hope of the gospel - the fullness of your future in Christ depends on it. He wrote to the Colossians,
(He will) present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight - if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel.
Colossians 1:22-23 - NKJV.
Paul, as a mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit, is exhorting us to stick fast with the hope of the gospel. We are not to allow ourselves to be shifted away from it.
Paul gives us an exact description of this hope in his epistle to the Romans. He writes,
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes.
Romans 1:16 - NKJV.
This is the hope of the gospel - that the gospel itself is God's power to save and deliver everyone who believes in it from whatever they need saving and delivering from. This is our hope in God. This is the hope that you and I are not to shift away from.
Now notice what gospel we are talking about. God's gospel - or good news - for us is the good news of Christ. It is the good news that God's Anointed One (this is what Christ means) has been sent to us.
Jesus came on a mission for us. He lived out this mission on earth. His mission was the mission of the Anointed One.
Jesus declared in Nazareth the good news of His mission. He said,
The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives, And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
Luke 4:18-19 - NKJV.
This is the good news of the Anointed One and you need to keep reminding yourself of it.
You need to keep letting Jesus be the Anointed One in your life. Keep letting Him do the work of the Anointed One for you; for He continues forever as the Anointed One in Heaven. You need to set your hope firmly and immovably on this good news.
You are establishing the hope of the gospel in your life every time you consider Jesus as the Anointed One in your life. This hope will anchor your soul and prevent it getting all worked up, or sent off on a tangent, when things don't quite work out as you believe they should.
As a pastor I need hope constantly at work anchoring my soul. Plenty of things happen in a church to cause great distress and disquiet to my soul. However, I daily make sure my soul is anchored by the hope of the gospel.
Each morning in prayer I get in the presence of Jesus and let Him be Christ, the Anointed One, to me. I let Him by His anointing preach the gospel to me and proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord to me. I let Him heal my heart and liberate me. I let Him give me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy in place of mourning and the garment of praise to replace the spirit of heaviness. (See Isaiah 61:1-3)
Then I consider Him. I consider how He - as the Anointed One - is head of the church and Saviour of His Body, the church. (Ephesians 5:23) This soon stops me trying to be saviour to the church. I let Him, as the Anointed One, be both head and saviour.
By the time that has happened, I am not only full of the hope of the gospel, I am also rejoicing in the hope of the gospel. My soul becomes quiet and my church is given the chance to know Christ's victory in their lives.
What is the hope of glory? I defined it for you as "an expectant, inner vision of your life's future in glory". What is this glory we keep talking about? It's getting to be like Jesus! The hope of the gospel leads us to the hope of glory.
Titus calls the hope of glory our 'blessed hope'. (Titus 2:13) Our blessed hope is that when Jesus returns we will be like Him. John tells us that when we have this hope we purify ourselves. (1 John 3:2)
Step by step as believers we are to be headed that way. God has given us that future as our Christian destiny. (Romans 8:29)
The Spirit of the Lord has liberated us for that wonderful change. Now, as we see His glory reflected in His Word, we are changed by His Spirit from one degree of glory to the next until finally we are revealed in His likeness.
Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
2 Corinthians 3:17-18 - NKJV.
As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.
Psalm 17:15 - NKJV.
This is David's heart cry for the fullness of redemption. This is his desire for the total realisation of the redemptive act of Christ. By the Spirit of God he has seen Christ's coming and he longs for the day when he will awake looking like Him. (Philippians 3:21.)
Day by day we are to be getting more like Jesus. One day, even before His return, each one in the church will stand on the earth in "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ". Ephesians 4:13.
Believer, how's your hope level? Are you abounding in hope or is hope at a low level? If hope is at a low level in your life you've somehow allowed yourself to be persuaded that there is little in God or His Word worthy of building hope on.
You may well have now been moved away from the hope of the gospel. There is still a solution. You must call out to God in prayer. Paul gives us our lead for this in his letter to the Romans. He writes,
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13 - NKJV.
You can pray in this way for yourself. Pray that the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing - believing in God and His wonderful Word. Then you will begin to abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Faith is our hold on hope. In the epistle to the Hebrews we are told,
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Hebrews 11:1 - NKJV.
The word "substance" used in that verse is translated from the Greek word, "hupostasis". Now the translators of the King James Bible weren't quite sure what "hupostasis" meant. Nevertheless, they could see from its context that it referred to something of substance so that is the word they chose to use - "substance". This served believers admirably for several centuries.
Today, though, we are blessed with the very meaning of the word itself. This came about by a marvellous archaeological find. A Roman lady's travel chest was uncovered in Palestine. They found papers inside it each with the heading hupostasis; each one described in detail property the lady had legal ownership of. Those papers were title deeds.
Those papers declared her legal right to possession of the described properties - properties that she had probably never seen with her eyes until her journey, though she had long known she owned them. The word hupostasis means title deed.
Faith is the title deed to things hoped for. In other words, faith declares to you your legal right to the possession of what you have been hoping for. It's your hold on hope.
When faith is so strong in you that it is causing you to be filled with all joy and peace, then the Holy Spirit has the chance to make you start abounding in hope.
Hope comes by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Read again Romans 15:13.)
Paul prayed for the Ephesian church for hope to come by the Holy Spirit. He wrote,
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling.
Ephesians 1:17-18 - NKJV.
By the Holy Spirit's power of revelation you will come to know what is the hope of His calling - His calling to glory! By the power of the Holy Spirit you will come to abound in hope; to be overflowing with it.
You can be filled to overflowing with hope. You can be rejoicing in hope. God desires for you not only to be anchored by hope, but also rejoicing in hope. Paul writes to the Romans,
We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Romans 5:2 - NKJV.
(Be) rejoicing in hope.
Romans 12:12 - NKJV.
The dynamic power of hope will flood our daily lives when we allow faith to give us access to standing and rejoicing in the hope of glory.
We can be men and women of God living our lives rejoicing in hope of the glory of God. What a breakthrough that will be! No earthly circumstance, condition, event or person can stop that kind of rejoicing! We will finally be fulfilling the scripture,
Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!
Philippians 4:4 - NKJV.
When you do this, you will break out into the dynamic power of hope in your life.
Hope will be an anchor to your soul, keeping it within the still waters of God's covenanted peace. Hope will give you an outlook and an up-look which nothing in this world can ever put down.
You can live victoriously, above it all in hope. You can rejoice in hope!
Copyright © 1998 P.F. (Simon) Measures
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This class is part of High Impact Christianity - now available as a six part book series!
Next class: Grace! - a lesson on a knowing grace in your life.
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