Practical Effects of Hope, Part 2

The point: Be involved with one another to the extent that you know and are sensitive to each other's needs, so you can comfort a brother or sister whose hope is dim.

Martin uses the analogy of a ship battered by a storm and needing an anchor to illustrate how a believer's hope can become dim in trials, requiring a brother or sister to remind them of their anchor to the soul.

And what Paul observed is what any person observes who has his eyes open at all in the Christian life, and it was this. Just when my hope, my confident expectation of the promised blessings of salvation should be creating in me constant joy, stability in the midst of a trial, just when that hope should be creating in me that sense of an anchor to the soul, because I am yet imperfect and the remains of sinner with me, I get so swallowed up by the present trial, in this case, I get so swallowed up by the grief that comes in the face of death that my hope becomes dim to me. And instead of having ...

10:43 - 12:11 Read in full sermon

The point: Let the unity constituted by God (one body, one Spirit, one hope) be an incentive to labor for unity in the bond of peace.

He compares disunity among God's people to soldiers in a common army fighting for common liberties, yet jabbing their bayonets at one another in the trenches, highlighting the foolishness and incongruity of division.

It's like a group of men in a common army fighting to preserve common liberties. Longing to reserve to a common land. How foolish if they begin to jab their bayonets at one another in the trenches. Stupid.

24:58 - 25:15 Read in full sermon

The point: Let the unity constituted by God (one body, one Spirit, one hope) be an incentive to labor for unity in the bond of peace.

Martin quotes Charles Hodge's commentary on Ephesians to underscore that the shared high destiny and expectations of Christians prove their oneness and are an evidence of the communion of saints.

How incongruous. And so it is when the people of God allow division to come into their ranks. It is a denial of what God has done. Hodge has given a comment on this in his exposition of the book of Ephesians that I thought was choice and I'll quote it for you before making several applications.

25:15 - 25:37 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the head's gone, you're gone. You've had it. You're done. And in hand-to-hand combat, it was the most vulnerable place.

Martin tells a story of soldiers returning from hand-to-hand combat, some missing limbs but alive, contrasting this with the impossibility of surviving a head wound, to emphasize the helmet's strategic importance as the most vital and conspicuous piece of armor.

Now, in hand-to-hand combat, which is the only thing they knew in those days, the helmet was the most conspicuous and the most significant piece of armor. There have been people who've gone into battle in hand-to-hand combat, who've come back without a hand, without an arm or a leg, and they've lived to tell about it. So that when their grandchildren said, Grandpa, how come you don't have a right hand? He said, well, son, let me tell you.

36:17 - 36:43 Read in full sermon

Driving home: When the head's gone, you're gone. You've had it. You're done. And in hand-to-hand combat, it was the most vulnerable place.

He uses Peter's denial of Christ before a servant girl as an example of cowering before the world's frown, contrasting it with the protection hope provides.

We're supposed to do like Peter did when a little servant girl came up and said, Oh, you're one of that crowd. You were with him. Ah, you were one of them. Peter begins to curse and deny, saying, I know not the man.

38:14 - 38:25 Read in full sermon

The point: Sanctify Christ as Lord in your heart, being ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason concerning the hope that is in you.

Martin describes an ungodly man observing a Christian who doesn't fight back when abused and praises God amidst calamity, leading the ungodly man to scratch his head and eventually inquire about the Christian's 'hope'.

You realize I'm called to follow the example of my Savior, and the whole story's not told down here, but it will be told up there. And he observes you in that circumstance, possessed of something that he cannot fathom. And you come to work one day, and he finds out that your household has been beset with calamity. And in the midst of it, he sees you saying, but, praise the Lord. He scratches his head.

45:14 - 45:42 Read in full sermon