How can we really talk about hope? How is it that we could be so bold as to name this church "The River of Hope?" Can we really offer hope to persons?

One reason – the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. We can’t debate it or defend it – just declare it.

The Bible is almost a picture book full of pictures of what it means to experience the hope that Christ brings.

In the book of Hebrews, you find that hope is called the "anchor of the soul." And the suggest is that your life drifts unless it has the hope that Jesus Christ brings.

In the Old Testament, the minor prophet Joel calls hope a "harbor," and the suggestion is that when life is out in the riptides of the sea, it is battered and you need to be able to come back into the harbor of hope to find life repaired.

The prophet Hosea called hope a "doorway" , the suggestion being that life everyday is like a room over the walls of which is written "No Exit" unless you know the hope that God gives.

In I Thessalonians Paul calls hope a "helmet" suggesting that it has the protective quality at the very center of life.

Interestingly, Ernst Bloc, the Marxist and humanist philosopher, likewise stated in two volumes on hope that it was essential for life whether it is the Christian New Testament or the Marxist and humanist.

Is it not a sense of hope that most politicians win elections over incumbents? I can make it better. Give me a try with my policies and ideas and party.

The Romans recognized the significance of hope because their word which means "I breathe, (sporando)" is so significant to life, it also means "I hope."

Humankind agrees that hope is a necessity.

But there is only one religion, one Book, one faith that gives hope – and its in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Peter reveals some essential characteristics about this hope in these verses:

Romans 8: 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.

Colossians 3:1 "If then you were raised with Christ" implying that you were.

Resurrection power is in us, that is the reason we will never die.

Four words used to describe this inheritance:

How can we have such joy?

The word "kept" in verse 5 is different than "reserved in Heaven" in verse 4. It is a military term used of soldiers guarding and of a base needing continual protection.

We are continually being kept – protected.

The story is told in the early days of migration to the West a traveler approached the banks of the Mississippi River. Seeing the river sheeted with ice and not knowing its thickness, he was fearful to trust himself to it. He spent the entire day debating whether or not he should attempt to cross. Finally, before sun down, he decided to reach the other side of the river so with much trepidation on his hands and knees, he painstaking crept toward the other side. Halfway across, he heard a rumbling behind him, and turning with care, he saw a wagon loaded with coal, drawn by four horses, crossing the frozen river. The caravan never stopped or slowed down as it approached the frozen river and went across it with lighting speed.

We are safe because our Savior has already been this way and knows that we can make it. So, get up child of God off your miserable attitudal knees and walk –yea, run – to the other side with full confidence that you will make it. Our Savior did.

As already noted, Peter wrote during a time of suffering and possibly intense persecution. But of these times of suffering, Peter said:

Untried faith is untrustworthy faith.

Trials do not indicate a displeasure on God’s part, but rather a deep concern and interest.

Gold is tried in order to separate it from dross and bringer it to a higher and purer level.

We love one we’ve never seen and long for a place where we’ve never been. Like a postcard that we see and say, "I wish I was there."

All of this produces a joy that is beyond our vocabulary not because we have seen the end of our salvation (the redemption of our body) but because we believe.

Remember the precious words of Jesus to Thomas in John 20: 29 "Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

                                                                        4.  We are experiencing a reality that the prophets and angels only wished for.  (verses 9-12)

Conclusion:

Psychologists have done an experiment with laboratory mice. They dropped a mouse into a beaker of water to see how long that mouse could swim or tread water. They found that sometimes a mouse could tread water for about an hour. And then they would just give up and sink unless they were rescued. But they also found that when they would rescue a mouse, give it resuscitation and dry it off, if they dropped that mouse back into the same beaker of water some of those mice could tread water for more than 12 hours until finally they were exhausted. They decided that mice as well as men need to have a sense of hope for a way out.