1 Peter 1:3 NASB
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
Romans 15:13 NASB
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
Luke 2:25; 38 NASB
And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout LOOKING for the consolation of Israel; and the Holy Spirit was upon him
And at that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God, and continue to speak of Him to all those who were LOOKING for the redemption of Jerusalem
Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose
I love the statement, “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”
Romans 15 says that God is a God of hope, not a God of negativism and pessimism. Because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, each one of us are born again to a living (thriving, ever present) hope. There are a number of reasons why the resurrection of Christ results in our being spiritually birthed into a living hope, and over the next few days we will take a look at that hope from several different directions but today I want you to see that just objectively, because Jesus Christ is risen from the dead, and is our Lord, we should live in the atmosphere of hope. The New Testament word for hope in its original meaning should be translated “a confident expectation of victory.” You and I, as people in Christ should live with an ever present thriving confident expectation of a victory that God will manifest, no matter the situation. To the normal, fallen human being, nothing is more daunting than the unavoidable fact of physical death. As a matter fact this is true about every human being, Christian or not, in the sense that each of us are all going to die, and that is an unavoidable reality, yet for those of us who are born again that unavoidable reality has been shot to heaven and back. For us as Christians, death has lost its sting, and the grave has lost its victory because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus conquered the unconquerable, and just as the enemy thought he had shut Jesus and his message down at the Cross, in humiliation, he discovered that the crucifixion of Jesus was the biggest mistake he had ever made. Through death Jesus trampled down death, and in His resurrection he makes a clear declaration that He is the great Overcomer. 2 Corinthians 2:14 says, “But thanks be to God who always leads us in His triumph in Christ…,” and therefore you and I can be comfortable and confident that the one who conquered death, will manifest His victory in whatever situation you find yourself in, even though you may not see evidence of it yet. Of all the people in the world, because of the resurrection of Jesus, you and I should live rejoicing in hope (Romans 12:12) every day. Actually every minute of every day, regardless of the situation you might find yourself in. I quoted those verses from Luke 2 because I wanted you to see that Simeon saw Jesus because he was LOOKING, and Anna was bearing witness of Jesus to all those around her at the temple who were LOOKING. If it’s true that God causes all things to work together for good, even those things that he didn’t cause, He is causing them to work together for our good, then shouldn’t we always be looking for the good that God is causing, that transcends all the bad that our natural eyes can only see. Because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead shouldn’t we as believers be always on our tiptoes, in hope, with a confident expectation that we will see the victory of God manifested, in God’s perfect timing. The resurrection of Christ tells us that it’s never too late, or too bad for victory to manifest. We are people of the resurrection, and therefore we are by our own new spiritual DNA people of a living hope. This is not a personality type, but instead it is a holy disposition of the normal Christian whose very lives have been transformed because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. When Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi, they had just been beaten, and they were shackled, and placed in the lowest dungeon. They were in great pain physically, and as far as they knew in the natural, they were going to be facing death the next morning, but at midnight they broke out into praise and worship. Why? Because they were followers of one who had conquered death, and they therefore had nothing to fear, even if it meant their physical death, because Jesus Christ was risen. The phrase “born again to a living hope,” should literally be written “born again INTO a living hope.” Paul and Silas were in Christ, and the One whose life they shared had conquered death, and being placed into His life in their spiritual rebirth, they were placed into a LIVING HOPE, for if He had conquered death, then they had nothing to fear or be pessimistic about.