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The God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

᛭ INI ᛭

God wishes to give you hope. He doesn’t want us to be hopeless, along with the hopeless world. When you hear the news, it’s all hopeless. Headlines without hope, no real hope of making it better. Or you get talking heads who are trying to manipulate their version of hope.

The Lord wants you to have hope, and the Lord’s hope, of course, is rooted in Christ. As Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come…in Him will the Gentiles hope.” He is “the Sun of Righteousness,” and He’ll “rise with healing in His wings,” in His arms outstretched for you. The only hope we have in any of the mess of our lives, in the mess of the world, in the mess of our sins is Christ crucified for the sins of the world.

We hope to be saved because of Christ. “He died for us on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.” That’s what Christ has done for us that we trust in Him. “Trust” and “hope” are close synonyms. So that is what Christ has done to secure any hope we have. But the Lord also wants us to abound in hope, be overflowing with hope, speak and spread hope in the world. To do that the Lord must deliver hope that we may have “all joy and peace and in believing.”

The way that God does this is manifold, but Paul zeros us in on one: the Scriptures, the written Word of God. Paul’s clear:

GOD WROTE THE SCRIPTURES SO THAT WE WOULD HAVE HOPE.

(I. God’s Word comes through the Scriptures.)

God wrote the Scriptures, or rather, He cause them to be written. He used many authors over a millennia and a half. He blessed the Patriarchs from Adam to Noah, and from Shem to Jacob and his sons, so that they would faithfully preserve it. He blessed Moses to write it some 1400 years before Christ, then all the prophets at various times and places. After Christ’s death, resurrection, and ascension, the Apostles or their companions wrote down the New Testament, which was finished some 70 years after Christ’s ascension. (The preservation of that Word is another matter. You can check out the newsletter about that.)

In every Psalm, Proverb, or whole book, God was using men to write down His Word. He sanctified every author. The Spirit worked through each of them. Each author His, the Spirit’s, amanuensis, secretary, writing as He moved them. Nevertheless, the Words are still their own. The Spirit used Isaiah to write like Isaiah, blessing human words to be His own.

So, when you’re reading your Bible, you’re not just reading Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John’s Words. (Though we talk that way sometimes.) No, you’re reading God’s Words. The inverse is also true. When you ignore God’s Word, you’re not just ignoring what some guy thought 2,000 to 3,000 years ago. You’re ignoring what God’s saying, that He used His almighty power to inspire it whenever it was written, so that it would be written for you. Think about that! The whole Bible written for each believer individually and all believers collectively! God worked that for you.

(Transition.)

Yes, the various author’s wrote what they wrote, and yet we also believe that GOD WROTE THE SCRIPTURES. Are they man’s words? Yes! (Isaiah, for example, did say it.) Are they God’s Word? Yes! As 2 Peter says, “Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” We can speak of the Bible like we do about the Sacrament of the Altar. The blessed bread is Christ’s body, the blessed wine His blood, but they’re also real bread and real wine. The bread and wine do not cease to exist and only their outward for remains. (No philosophy of Transubstantiation!) Same with the Scriptures! Isaiah blessed by the Spirit is still Isaiah. Isaiah is writing in a miraculous way where his word is not only his but the Spirit’s Word, and so without error. The inspiration of Scripture is as much a mystery as the Lord’s Supper.

Now, all this gets us to WHY GOD WROTE THE SCRIPTURES. He wrote them SO THAT WE WOULD HAVE HOPE. And that’s why we talk about them like the Supper, for example. We talk about the Bible, then, like it’s a means of grace, well, because it is!

(II. God’s Word is a means of grace.)

We Lutherans are good about defending the efficacy of Baptism, of the Absolution, and of the Lord’s Supper. We trust these means of grace. They fill us with joy and peace. They give us hope! And they should! Baptism “works forgiveness of sins, rescues from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.” (SC IV) Same with Communion: “These words ‘given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins,’ show us that in the Sacrament, forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation are given us through these words.” (SC VI) Absolution, too, “by it your sins are forgiven before God in heaven!” (SC V)

The blessing of the Scriptures are “endurance,” “comfort,” “encouragement,” and “hope!” This is because the Bible’s goal, the reason God wrote it, is not to tell you facts and figures and nice stories, moral stories, about life some two to three thousand years ago! The whole Bible was written to prepare God’s people for Christ, to point us to Christ, to sustain faith in Christ. Now, it also does show us what life in Christ should look like, but Paul says that the thing we should “learn” from the Bible is “hope!”

Hope in Christ is the goal for which God wrote them. The Scriptures are the swaddling clothes for the infant Christ. (Luther) Every page is stained with the shed blood of Christ. (Luther) And so when we don’t take up our Bibles, don’t “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the Scriptures, we’re missing out. Missing out on “all joy and peace in believing!” We’re not only disregarding GOD’S WORD. We’re not only disobeying His commands about holding fast to His Word. We’re also not receiving the grace and blessing and gift He wants to give.

In fact, it was the very reason He wrote them in the first place! Not only to give you something to do, or show you what to do, or to have a way to ding you when you don’t do it. No, He wants to tell you all about Christ and His salvation, His death and resurrection for your sins. That’s what the Bible’s really all about from Genesis through Malachi (the Old Testament) as well as Matthew through Revelation (the New Testament.)

For deep in the prophets’ sacred page,

And grand in poets’ winged word,

Slowly in type, from age to age

The nations saw their coming Lord;

Till through the deep Judean night

Rang out the song, “Good will to men!”

Sung once by first-born sons of light,

It echoes now, “Good will!” Amen. (LSB 810)

(Conclusion.)

The Lord wants you to have hope, and the Lord’s hope, of course, is rooted in Christ. As Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse will come…in Him will the Gentiles hope.” He is “the Sun of Righteousness,” and He’ll “rise with healing in His wings,” in His arms outstretched for you. The only hope we have in any of the mess of our lives, in the mess of the world, in the mess of our sins is Christ crucified for the sins of the world.

We hope to be saved because of Christ. “He died for us on the cross for the forgiveness of sins.” That’s what Christ has done for us that we trust in Him. “Trust” and “hope” are close synonyms. So that is what Christ has done to secure any hope we have. But the Lord also wants us to abound in hope, be overflowing with hope, speak and spread hope in the world. To do that the Lord must deliver hope that we may have “all joy and peace and in believing.”

The way that God does this is manifold, Baptism, Absolution, and the Supper of course. But Paul zeros in on one we Lutherans sometimes forget: the Scriptures, the written Word of God—written for you. Inspired St. Paul is quite clear:

GOD WROTE THE SCRIPTURES SO THAT WE WOULD HAVE HOPE.

᛭ INI ᛭