The Foundation of Our Hope

turn to 1 Timothy chapter 1 1 Timothy chapter 1 excuse me 1 Timothy chapter 1 in our first week Pastor John introduced us to the author of this letter and then the other week Pastor surface introduced us to the recipient of the letter which is Timothy and so Paul is the author uh Timothy is the recipient and tonight we're going to focus on Jesus but more specifically Jesus as our hope and what this meant to Paul what this meant to Timothy and what this meant to the church that was in Ephesus that Timothy was overseeing and so we're going to read uh 1 Timothy chapter 1 verses 1 and two and the Bible says this Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ by the Commandment of God Our Savior and Lord Jesus

Christ which is Our Hope unto Timothy my own son in the faith grace mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ Our Lord tonight I want to draw your attention to the phrase Jesus Christ which is our Our Hope and so let's pray and then we're going to dive into our our lesson tonight father we love you so much and we're so grateful for the opportunity to be here together Lord to worship you to fellowship with each other and then also just to be able to hear from your word pray father that you would just use me tonight pray that you would uh let your word speak and I pray that we would get to know more about first Timothy and and how it can uh challenge us encourage us and just impact

Our Lives Lord father would you be with us tonight in Jesus name we pray amen what does it mean that Jesus is our hope well the word hope here comes from the Greek word elus and lpus means uh expectation it has the idea of expectation of good um this expectation is is tied to the Eternal salvation concerning Jesus Christ Jesus Christ is our expectation our hope it's tied to the Eternal salvation that Christ gives us it's also tied uh to just what the Salvation that Jesus brought us and it's also tied to just the foundation of Hope Jesus is the foundation of Hope and Jesus is also the Fulfillment of promises that we hold on to and so this hope uh breaks down into not just hope of the future

but it's also hope of what Jesus Christ has accomplished from the past and also hope for us in the present in today's day and so tonight we're going to look at Jesus Christ as our hope and I want to take you back to the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 42 if you would turn to Isaiah 42 Isaiah 42 veres 1 to 4 when you get there would you say amen amen all right good job you guys are there Isaiah 42 1-4 the Bible says this behold my servant whom I whom I uphold my elect in whom my soul delighted I have put my spirit upon him he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles he shall not cry nor lift up nor cause his voice to be heard in the street a bruised re shall he not break and the smoke flax

shall he not quench he shall bring forth judgment unto truth he shall not fail nor nor be discouraged till he have set judgment in the earth and the aisle shall wait for his law Matthew chapter number 12: 18- 21 if you would turn there is the Fulfillment is is Jesus Christ actually speaking on these verses that Isaiah had spoken of Matthew 12: number 18- 21 the Bible says this as well behold my V whom I have chosen my beloved in whom my soul is well pleased I will put my spirit upon him and he shall show judgment to the Gentiles he shall not strive nor cry neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets a bruised Reed shall he not break and smoke Flack shall he not quench till he send

forth judgment unto Victory and in his name shall the Gentiles trust I think about Luke Chapter 2 with Simeon with we're speaking of Hope and Jesus Christ is the Fulfillment of the prophecies that were spoken of in the Old Testament the very first prophecy that God gave to mankind prophesying of a coming Messiah that would come to Earth to to destroy Satan and to save mankind was Genesis chapter number 3:15 and that was the first prophecy and there's countless prophecies in the Old Testament where when we get to the New Testament Jesus Christ is the one that fulfills all of those prophecies and there's many prophecies that have not been fulfilled yet that Jesus Christ will also fulfill later

but I think about Luke chapter number two because I want I want you to understand this hope that Israel had been waiting for for hundreds of years it's before Christmas and Israel is still waiting for their Messiah and then Christmas came and Luke chapter number to Simeon By the holy spirit is drawn to the temple where Jesus where Mary and Joseph are bringing Jesus Christ who is just 8 days old by this point and they go to the temple to offer the sacrifices that were necessary that were part of the law and they come to this Temple and Simeon is there and he spots this couple and with the holy spirit's help he's able to know that this is the person that I am to appro approach and he comes to

Mary and Joseph he asks to pick Jesus up and he holds Jesus in his arms and the Bible says in Luke number 2:25 and behold there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon and the same man was just and devout waiting for the consolation of Israel and the Holy Ghost was upon him and it was revealed unto him by the holy ghost that that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ and he came by the spirit into the temple and when the parents brought in the Child Jesus to do for him after the custom of the law then took he him up in his arms and blessed God and said Lord now let us thy thou thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word for mine eyes have seen thy salvation

which thou has prepared before the face of all people a light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of thy People Israel and Joseph and his mother marveled at those things which were spoken of him this was the hope that Israel had waited for and Simeon this old man who had studied scripture obviously because he's able to understand that this is the time frame in which the Messiah is to come Simeon who has been faithful to God maybe he's waited maybe he went to this Temple over and over until he finally saw Jesus on this day but when he saw Jesus Bible says that he looks down and He blesses God because he understands understands that this is God incarnate this is God In the Flesh and this is

the hope that was fulfilled that we've been waiting for and so Simeon blesses God and says I'm good I can go to heaven now I can die because I've seen the hope of Israel this was the hope and Simeon got it but as we studied the New Testament not a lot of Israelites understood that this was the hope not a lot of Israelites understood that Jesus Christ is in fact the Messiah and he is the one that has fulfilled scriptures and we know this because Jesus walked among men and he preached the gospel of the kingdom of God and when he was healing people on the Sabbath day what did the Pharisees highlight hey you can't do that even though like he healed somebody and it was a miraculous thing they

pointed out the fact that he was breaking the Sabbath to the one that actually created the Sabbath so there's a lot of Pharisees and Israelites that did not understand that the Hope had already came so you might ask why why is that important to our study of First Timothy why is knowing Jesus Christ as our hope important to understanding the stud our study in in 1 Timothy our the the title of our um series is building a strong church and so understanding that Christ is our hope is very important to this study because it helps us to understand that Paul finally understood what that hope was who that hope was and Jesus Christ Our Hope to Paul it changed his life but as as we read about this uh

this letter we read about this recipient Timothy we see that Paul needed to encourage Timothy about this hope again and we'll see later of just how I think Timothy was ready to leave Ephesus and we'll see how Paul had to encourage him to stay and it was this hope that allowed him to stay there to encourage him and and then lastly we'll see that though Christ as our hope actually helps us in our churches today to stay faithful to God because as we'll see the church in Ephesus there's a lot of problems that the church in Ephesus that had risen up in the church in Ephesus but we'll start off with first of all Jesus Christ Our Hope to Paul and so Paul had the wrong hope before meeting Jesus I

mean Paul trusted in the religious works of Judaism he was a devoted Pharisee you can read about this in Philippians chapter number three uh verses 4-6 he he admits Paul admits to being a perfect follower of the Judaism way he was blameless when he came to following the law like he said that he was just he did everything from his youth up he wasad dedicated to Judaism and to God but as we know Paul actually opposed the early church by imprisoning and even giving the green light to killing Christians Paul was zealous and passionate in serving God but he had the wrong hope and Pastor John already explained the background of Paul and and the things about Paul so if you want to listen more about

Paul you can go back to that lesson but Paul met Jesus in Acts chapter 9 and his life turned upside down after this uh his conversion Jesus uh Jesus became Paul's Savior and hope Paul finally understood that Jesus was who he who the law and the prophets had spoken of I want you to think about that because Paul had studied the law and the prophets Paul is past 20 years old by this point he he learned under Galo he he learned under the the smartest people that studied the law but from his youth up to before his con conversion Paul did not understand who Jesus was because he had the wrong hope but when he became saved Paul's dedication and Zeal what's awesome is that his dedication and Zeal

before he got saved was the same if not more after he got saved and he became one of the most on fire person for the Lord since he got saved this hope filled his ministry and in Philippians chapter number three verse number 20 and 21 we see that this is Paul's hope of being transformed and conformed to Jesus Glory but verse 20 says this for our conversation is in heaven from whence also we uh we look for the Savior the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself Paul has hope for the future and he knows what's going to happen to him in the future

Colossians chapter number 1: 27 says this to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of the mystery among the Gentiles which is Christ in you the hope of glory Paul's Mission became to the Gentiles to preach the the gospel to them and to reach them for Christ and it's this hope that he received from Jesus Christ that he's been giving to to the Gentiles as well Romans 5: 3-5 says this and not only so but we glory in tribulations also knowing that tribulations work at patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope it hope make it not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us Paul's hope whenever he

went through tribulation he he didn't feel too down because he had that hope that was able to help him through those dark times let me connect this to you but do you remember when Jesus changed your life when you understood what Jesus did for you and became a child of God do you remember that moment when you finally accepted the gospel and was able to see Jesus Christ for who he was are you still thankful for that moment do you live as if Christ is still your hope since that moment you can see the difference in Paul's life from when he received Christ and he finally understood that hope his life changed completely and he was able to be on fire for God and he started so many churches reaching

the Gentiles and the Jews as well but Paul's life changed after receiving Jesus Christ as his hope my question and challenge to you is since you've been saved can others tell that you have that hope do you live do you live as if your life has been changed by the gospel of God when I was studying this I had some interesting sight tangents of like I I like to ask questions when I study and I like to put myself inside the context of what's uh what's happening in in the story um whatever story but specifically the Bible but I was I was wondering where was Paul during Jesus ministry like have you ever wondered where Paul was when Jesus Christ was in um the places my mind is going black the places

in the Bible where was Paul was he did he hear about him did did the news travel to where he was was he able to hear about all the things that Jesus Christ did and I wonder as he's listening maybe he did hear it I wonder if that fed his hatred towards this new thing that's developing what is this new thing that's we're not used to why why is there a person that's going around and preaching his own sermons and saying claiming that he is God or he's he's the son of God like who is like I wonder what's going through Paul's mind as he's listening to to the the news of Jesus Fame being spread abroad what were his initial thoughts of Jesus but Christ became Paul's hope and because of that he is

able to encourage Timothy and so our second point tonight is that Jesus our hope to Timothy Jesus our hope to Timothy first of all Jesus our hope to Paul now we're going to look at Jesus or hope to Timothy but did you ever consider that Tim that Timothy didn't want to be in Ephesus anymore as I was reading this I you have to look at verse number three but you can kind of tell from Reading verse three that that I think Timothy was done that I mean the church or the church in Ephesus had some problems and we'll cover those later in our third point but verse number three the Bible says this and I as I besought 1 Timothy 1:3 as I besought Thee to abide still at Ephesus Paul speaking to Timothy

when I went into Macedonia that thou mightest charge some that they teach no other Doctrine the word besought here means urged or request earnestly as if he's pleading for Timothy to stay Paul is saying that he strongly urged Timothy to stay in Ephesus to address these false teaching in modern language besought carries the sense of pleading or strongly encouraging someone to take action uh I came on staff in end of 2016 and 2017 is when I officially became the youth pastor here uh but being uh coming on staff and being one of the youngest or if not the youngest on staff uh it's I understand the feeling of trying to speak or preach to grown-ups I'm not saying you guys are old but when when

whenever I was in meetings with my staff meetings or whenever I'm preaching when I'm preaching to Youth and the teenagers it's it's comfortable uh I still get nervous sometimes but it you know it's easier for me to speak to them but when I speak to adults or you know adult church I feel like I'm being judged and then and that's not that's not on you but that's just because I feel like I'm young I look around and I scan and I see wisdom so many great hairs I'm like these people no more than I do and here I am so I I I get the feeling of being young and trying to preach God's word to people that know more than I do and I think that's what Timothy is facing as he is in Ephesus and he's been

here for a while now but he's in Ephesus Paul left him and he's trying to make straight the things that are being crooked because I imagine that there are some much older more influential in a sense of having more knowledge people that are coming in and they're they're spreading false Doctrine with the church in Ephesus and I think Timothy as he's he's looking at this situation he's like I can't change these people is I can't do this and so Paul is urging Timothy here to stay and to actually to actually um make sure that there's no false doctrine that is being preached here I imagine the people preaching false Doctrine in Timothy's Church where um were spre were were spreading rumors or

spreading false Doctrine among within the Christians in this church It is believed that Timothy was probably in his 30s when Paul wrote him this letter um I'm not 30 yet um but I'm going to be soon um but in in our day we think that um youth is 15 and up but in back then in that culture youth was up up to 30 35 that's that's what they considered as Youth and so Timothy was young in what he was doing and Paul actually um encourages him later by saying um in 1 Timothy chapter number 4 if you would turn there 1 Timothy chapter 4 in verse number 16 the Bible says this or verse number 12 the Bible says this in verse number 12 let no man despise thy youth but be thou an example of the Believers so

I I take you this verse and this verse will be covered later but I tell take you there because it adds to Timothy's or Paul's reasoning to encourage Timothy to stay in this church to preach to these people to teach these people to re in whatever is is causing all these problems and we'll touch on those problems later on but I imagine that Timothy needed some encouragement and so as Paul is writing this he highlights that Christ is our hope not just to to to state the fact that he's saved and that is true to Paul but I think to encourage Timothy that hey this is why we do what we we do because Jesus Christ came he died for mankind and he also died for our people and he died for these Gentiles

these Gentiles that are spreading false Doctrine against what the Bible what what Jesus Christ had preached and or taught us and so Timothy needed some encouragement in 2 Timothy Timothy chapter number one verse number 7 Bible says this for God had not given us the spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind and I think this hope reminded Timothy that Jesus strength was with with him that that he can remain here because he doesn't necessarily need Paul to help him in a sense of uh telling these people Paul telling these people but Timothy is able to also tell these people what what what is right and what what is Doctrine what is correct uh and the things of scripture and my

question to connect this to us tonight is this what are you going through right now that you just needed a reminder of the hope that Jesus gives what is it that it might not be you're you might not be in some kind of leadership position and you might not be in Timothy's shoes and and what the gravity of the situation with him but there might be something in your life that you're facing right now maybe it's something that feels overwhelming uh maybe it's something that is causing discouragement and you just need to realize that Christ is also your hope if you're saved if you have been if you have accepted the Gospel of Jesus Christ you have access to that hope that Jesus Christ can help you

in the difficulty that you might be facing right now and Timothy needed to hear that Jesus fulfilled the Prophecies of the Old Testament he needed the assurance that Jesus did what they had been uh preaching about all this time that Paul had taken Timothy to preach to these says Timothy needed the reminder again and I love that Paul is writing to Timothy and that as as you read this again in 1 Timothy chapter number one in verse number uh two it says unto Timothy my own son in the faith and how how good that must have felt to Timothy to have this person that everybody looks up to this person that started the church in Ephesus or or help start the church in Ephesus that is much wiser and has

been there and knows more than Timothy how how encouraging that must have been for Timothy to read this and read it to everybody else and tell them hey I am a this is my my father and like my spiritual dad because Paul is kind of validating the fact that Timothy has the right to be here to teach and to correct and all these people that are causing problem Timothy has the right to correct them and it's so encouraging to see that from Paul's perspective to encourage Timothy and say hey hang in there because Christ is our hope you're able to stay and be able to uh challenge these this church here in Ephesus and I'm uh as I was also studying this I'm I'm going to take you on another side tangent

I was asking some questions to myself but did you ever think where was Timothy when Jesus Jesus was preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God like as as Timothy is with his mom and his grandma uh at home um when did he hear about Jesus Christ because obviously when Paul met him he already was saved and he had a relationship with God so it would it would have been cool to kind of understand or know when Timothy heard the news of hey there's this famous person that's been healing people he fed like 20,000 people with Five Loaves and two fishes and also so there was a guy that was preaching and and he was able to heal this person and that and I just I'd like to see that as a as a young person

because when Jesus was walking on this Earth uh First Timothy was written in about 60 AD and so if Timothy was about 30 years old at that time 30 ad Timothy would have been what a what baby oh sorry give me give me let me reverse that so uh 60 uh 5 ad is When U Paul meets Timothy but before that um when would Timothy be with Jesus or would be hearing about Jesus 10 yeah 10 yeah so he he was still a junior age kid and he's hearing about the gospel about this person that's going around preaching and how cool that would have been to hear that that news um but that's just a sight tangent I like I like to take those every now and then so Timothy needed the reminder but what about the church in

Ephesus and so our last point tonight is this um Jesus our hope to the church and the sad reality is that there's a lot of churches I was looking up statistics there's a lot of churches that close their doors each year um it's believed to be 4,500 churches per year that close their doors and I don't know what the denominations are whatever but these are churches that Google has said that closed their doors but that's very sad and the point here that I that I want to bring us to there's a lot of problems that are being mentioned here in in this book to Timothy in 1 Timothy and I'll just list off a few of those but one of the the biggest problem here was the false teaching that was being

spread around false Doctrine there was also misuse of the law uh and then there was um just speculative ideas there were agenda roles that were being uh put one was being put on a pedestal uh there was leadership qualification problems uh there was apathy and godliness there was just materialism uh there's also uh dispute and division that were happening in this church and all of these things Timothy has to correct so Paul is writing to Timothy hey make sure that these are being done and the church in Ephesus needed the hope that Jesus Christ is truth because if Jesus Christ is truth then everything else that is being false in this church needs needs to align to Jesus and so Paul Paul needed

to remind Timothy of that hope so that Timothy could remind the Church of Jesus Christ who is Our Hope of the truth that he brings and what scripture should we should be uh following and and the things of that nature and so Timothy being reminded to share these things to this church is very important and if we're not careful as a church we can fall into the statistics as well if Jesus Christ does does not become the foundation of our church doesn't become Our Hope and that it's easy for us to move away from truth and to uphold standards and to uphold traditions and to uphold things and and cause divisions and before we know it we'll split and we'll have problems and Ohana Baptist Church

might not exist again but if we have the right view of who Jesus Christ is and how he is the Hope for the church today our church today and how he continues to be our hope for the future and we align our practices everything that we do in accordance to who Jesus is in according in accordance to what his word says then I believe that our church can also continue to be strengthened and with that we can remain faithful to Jesus Christ because we have that understanding that Jesus Christ is the number one that we should align everything that we believe to because if not then we'll be like the Pharisees when Jesus Christ is healing Miracles Pharisees are more worried about Traditions when Jesus

Christ is doing miracles in people's lives they're like why are you breaking the Sabbath this person that has not walked in 38 years they're more focused on the Sabbath law and the tradition that they had put up and so the reminder for us tonight is that Christ is our hope and I hope that you would take that and that he would study it out he's our hope for what he's done in the past and how he's fulfilled prophecy he's our hope in what continues to do in our lives today but he's our hope for what's to come later which will be with him forever and that is an encouragement