The God of Hope

“Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” (Romans 15:4)

Paul is speaking about the Old Testament here in this verse, but what he says applies today. The Bible was written for our learning. This is not the conclusion of everyone. However, this does not change the facts. The greatest of all learning is the learning we get from God’s Word.

God's Word instructs us in the most important matters of life. Any institute of learning that ignores the Bible will wallow in ignorance in the most important matters of life. In Romans 15:4, Paul speaks of three areas of learning which we gain from the Scriptures. They are patience, comfort, and hope. These are very important areas of learning indeed.

Patience

Patience is a virtue of great value and none of us have enough of it. However, we can learn it from the Scriptures. The more we get into the Scriptures in earnest study, the better we will learn about patience. The world is not teaching about patience (its advertisements emphasize getting everything right now), but the Word will teach us patience.

Comfort

We live - are living in a very discomforting world. It can get pretty rocky and bumpy at times, and often we hit these rough areas of life. However, the Scriptures - God's Word will give us the comfort we need for the rough places of life; scripture gives us - the believer the best comfort.

Hope

Another valuable thing we learn from Scripture is hope. Hope is confident expectation, anticipation, looking and longing for, desiring, relying upon and trusting. The world does not give us any hope. Rather, it gives us a lot of hopelessness. But the Bible gives a lot of hope. It will give us hope in the midst of the worst circumstances and trails. It will give us hope for the future. If you want hope in your life, go to God's Word. It gives the best hope.

Romans 15:13:

"Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost." 

Here it is "the God of hope." There is nothing hopeless about the Christian experience. 

"The God of hope" is both the One who gives us hope and the object our hope. 

Our joy is the joy of the Lord. (John 15:11; Galatians 5:22; 1 John 1:4) 

The peace is not "as the world giveth." (John 14:27)

It is Jesus' peace given by the Holy Spirit to those who hope in God.

(Galatians 5:22; Philippians 4:7)

The believer does not build on the experience of an hour or the happenings of a minute; our hope is in God, the One who sees the end from the beginning, planning and understanding it all. 

The result of joy and peace abounds "through the power of the Holy Spirit."

The description of God as the God of hope relates to hope mentioned in the preceding verses and to the promises of God recorded in the Scripture which give hope. Paul desired God to fill his readers with all joy and peace. (Romans 14:17)

1) We experience joy as we anticipate seeing our hopes fulfilled. 

2) Peace is the result of the assurance we have that God will fulfill our hopes. 
(Romans 5:1; Philippians 4:7)

3) Joy and peace are experienced as we trust in Him.
(Hebrews 11:1)

4) As a result of the believer’s joy and peace, there’s overflow of hope aided by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Romans 15:19)

The achievement of all God's purposes for the spiritual welfare of His children comes from the power given by the Spirit of God. 

A strong fellowship - Church

Each one of us has a personal responsibility to help make our local fellowship of believers a strong body. It is the duty of every believer to bring all he or she is—the talents, gifts, love, knowledge, acceptance that come only from knowing God—to the local church. There are five qualities, five marks that spell out a strong fellowship:

• Mark 1: the strong bear the weaknesses of the weak.
• Mark 2: everyone studies the Scriptures - God's Word.
• Mark 3: everyone works for harmony.
• Mark 4: everyone accepts one another without discrimination.
• Mark 5: everyone is filled by the God of hope.

Our God - our Father is the "God of hope!!!"

He is:

·  the "Author" of our hope

·  the "Foundation" of our hope

·  the "Builder" of our hope

·  the "Finisher" of our hope