“Good Hope Through Grace”
2 Thessalonians 2:16
Do you have a “good hope through grace”? Do you have the hope of the gospel? Where there is true faith in the heart there is also the confident hope of the gospel. Paul says that a man is saved who cannot be moved away from the hope of the gospel (Col. 1:23).
Faith And Hope
Faith unites us
to Christ. Faith brings us all the blessings of grace and salvation in Christ.
But it is hope that anchors the believer’s soul in the stormy sea of life. Hope
inspires our courage in the midst of trouble. And hope causes God’s elect to
persevere, looking beyond the things of time to eternity (Lam.
The Object Of Hope
For what do we hope? Believers hope to be accepted before God. We hope to be fully pardoned of all sin and completely acquitted of all charges before God's holy throne. We hope to inherit all the glory and bliss of Emmanuel's land. We hope to be found in Christ at last, not having our own righteousness which is after the law, but the righteousness of God which is by the faith of Christ
The Basis Of Hope
What is the basis, or foundation, of the believer’s hope? That is an easy question for every true believer to answer. All our hope before God for all things rest entirely and alone upon the blood and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, our all-sufficient Substitute! Believers have absolutely no confidence in the flesh, in anything they have experienced, in anything they have felt, or in anything they have done. Our souls’ hope is Christ alone!
"My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus' blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus' name.”
"His oath, His covenant, and His blood
Support me in the whelming flood:
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay."
In the words of Charles Buck, “The hope of a Christian is an expectation of all necessary good both in time and eternity, founded upon the promises, relations, and perfections of God, and on the offices, righteousness, and intercession of Christ. It is a compound of desire, expectation, patience, and joy.”
Don Fortner