Seek the Hope That is Above

November 30, 2025
Sermon Audio

CENTRAL TEXT: 1 Peter 1:3-5, 13-16

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

13 Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 14 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, 15 but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, 16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 

First Advent Reading – Hope Candle

#1: Advent is a time of waiting. During this season, we remember and celebrate Israel’s waiting for the birth of the Messiah, who is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And in this season, we also remember that we, the Church, are in another, larger season of waiting: waiting for Christ to return, as he said that he would. In this sense, we are in-between advents. Each week we light a candle in reflection and anticipation of this season. The first candle is the Hope Candle, which invites us into a hopeful anticipation of the Coming King.

#2: Psalm 130:5-8
I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in his Word I put my hope. I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption. He himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.

#3: Psalm 85:8-10
Let me hear what God the LORD will speak, for he will speak  peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly. Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.

PRAYER/SCRIPTURE READING/CONFESSION OF FAITH:  

Colossians 1:15-20, Heidelberg Catechism Q. 1

LEADER: The entire bible is One story; all pointing to the beauty and finished work of Jesus and so each week we offer additional scripture & liturgy that connect to the central text and themes to illustrate this continuity. Our central text for today is found in 1 Peter 1 and and so we offer a reading from Colossians 1 and then question 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism. First Colossians 1.

LEADER: He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. 17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together. 18 And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent. 19 For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his Cross. The Word of the Lord.

And now question from The Heidelberg Catechism

LEADER: What is your only comfort in life and death? 

ALL: That I with body and soul, both in life and death, am not my own, but belong unto my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ; who, with his precious blood, has fully satisfied for all my sins, and delivered me from all the power of the devil; and so preserves me that without the will of my heavenly Father, not a hair can fall from my head; yea, that all things must be subservient to my salvation, and therefore, by his Holy Spirit, He also assures me of eternal life, and makes me sincerely willing and ready, henceforth, to live unto him.

BENEDICTION: Romans 15:13

LEADER: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

1 John 3:2-3

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS: 

  1. How might you, or someone close to you, describe your disposition–more sunny or more wintry? If you had to assess why it tends to lean in one direction than the other, what answers would you offer?
  2. Name the several things we tend to place our hopes in? 
  3. Where is Peter compelling us to place our hope? And how are we to do that? What specific instruction did he give to us? Is that instruction familiar to you? How is it part of your discipline to live in that hope that is above?
  4. We said in the sermon that one mark of a mind set on the hope that is above is the pursuit of holiness. Was there anything new you heard in the sermon about what approach that pursuit takes?
  5. What did Peter mean by “the passions of our former ignorance”? Why is the moral life more than just compliance with the ethical standards of God? Why is it the very source of a good life?
  6. Why might the pursuit of holiness–of imitating the holiness of God Himself–be, not a soul-crushing effort, but a life-giving pursuit when seen in light of the pardoning, saving grace of God? 

Illustrations

How The Grinch Stole Christmas

QUOTES:

With those who are spiritually-minded: they not only think much of God, but they take delight in these thoughts; they are sweet unto them; and not only so, but they have no solid joy nor delight, but in their thoughts of God, which therefore they retreat into continually... wherein they find relief and refreshment against all they feel and fear. 
- John Owen
The Christian does not simply look to heaven but thinks from heaven. 
- Sinclair Ferguson
I am going to Him whom my soul hath loved, or rather who hath loved me with an everlasting love; which is the whole ground of all my consolation. The passage is very irksome and wearysome through strong pains of various sorts which are all issued in an intermitting fever... Live and pray and hope and do not despair; the promise stands invincible that he will never leave thee nor forsake thee. 
- John Owen
You will give the people an ideal to strive towards. They'll race behind you, they will stumble. They will fall... But in time, they will join you in the sun. In time, you will help them accomplish wonders. 
- Jor-El to Kal-El in Man of Steel
it should never be forgotten that Christianity entered human history not as a new creed or sapiential path or system of religious observances, but as apocalypse: the sudden unveiling of a mystery hidden in God before the foundation of the world in a historical event without any possible precedent or any conceivable sequel; an overturning of all the orders and hierarchies of the age, here on earth and in the archon-thronged heavens above; the overthrow of all the angelic and daemonic powers and principalities by a slave legally crucified at the behest of all the religious and political authorities of his time, but raised up by God as the one sole Lord over all the cosmos; the abolition of the partition of Law between peoples; the proclamation of an imminent arrival of the Kingdom and of a new age of creation; an urgent call to all persons to come out from the shelters of social, cultic, and political association into a condition of perilous and unprotected exposure, dwelling nowhere but in the singularity of this event – for the days are short. 
- David Bentley Hart

BOOKS / DOCS

“Tradition and Disruption: Apocalypse, not dogma, is Christianity’s grounds for hope.” David Bentley Hart
”I’m looking forward to seeing the Lord,” an interview with John Lennox