ABOUNDING IN HOPE
Romans 15:13
Hope makes a difference in the way you relate to your fellowman. No one has more difficulty in human relations than does the skeptic. For this reason the Apostle closes the main body of the Roman letter with an earnest prayer for the believers to abound in hope. It is his genuine desire that their lives be literally overflowing with hope. This hope includes the confident expectation of eternal life. It is the confident expectation that the purpose of God will triumph in the life of His people.

Biblical prayers should be interpreted as Divine promises. Whatever God prompts Men to earnestly pray for in the pages c! inspired scriptures, He is promising to his people. So we can approach this inspired petition with a confidence that it contains a promise from God to us.

You can be sure that the secret of now to have a life filled with hope is contained in this promise. In a day that is increasingly becoming marked with despair and skepticism, we need to rediscover the way of Christian hope and optimism. Of all the people in the world who should be free from pessimism, it should be the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.

As we look at the words of this prayer, we need to keep its context in view. Paul is concluding the great section on strong and weak Christians relating rightly to each other. He has just counseled them to stand before God with one mind and with one voice to glorify God. If they are to do this, they must be a people abounding in hope. if they are to abound in hope, certain things must happen in their lives‑‑‑for these the Apostle prays.

THE LIFE ABOUNDING IN HOPE COMES FROM GOD
This justifies the prayer to God. God is the source of all hope and confident living. Any other approach to confident living will be based upon deceit and lies.

Two things in the prayer call our attention to God as the source of hope. First, His character as the God of hope is presented. The prayer is addressed to the "God of hope". In this chapter the Apostle uses several such names for God. Already we have heard him addressed as the God of patience and consolation. Later in the chapter Paul will address Him as the God of peace. How are we to understand these titles? Basically they point to God as the source of this quality or attribute of life. In this case God is the God of hope because He is the source of all true hope. Any time you find a man facing life with a true confident expression you can know that it has come from God.

Careful students of our culture have been observing the death of hope and confidence in Western man. There is a direct relationship between the death of hope and man's relationship to God. Whenever man ignores and denies God, he opens his life to pessimism and despair. This has become the spirit of modern man. His movies all have sad and tragic endings. His novels end in a cloud of despair. His poetry oozes out a spirit of hopelessness. When man loses touch with God, he loses his only basis for optimism and hope. God is the source of all hope.

In addition to the character of God, our attention is called to the activity of God. "The God of peace fill you." Maybe we have become too familiar with the truth stated in this simple address to God. Involved in this is the profound conviction that the God of peace does touch the life of man. There is the direct touch of God upon human life. The petition is addressed to God that He might do the thing He is inclined to do‑‑fill the life of man with the essentials for a life of hope and confidence.

Has God touched you this week? Have you been aware of His divine activity in and through your life? Or is your God an absent deity? Do you walk alone? The people who have hope are those whose eyes have been opened to the divine activity in their behalf and in their lives. To know that God is filling your life, and the life of your brother with all good things is to be a person of hope. He is truly the source of hope.

THE LIFE ABOUNDING IN HOPE COMES BY FAITH
In our exegeting of this passage, we need to be careful to understand the relationship between the different phrases. God's filling of His people with joy and peace is to be in the realm or sphere of their continuing to exercise their faith in God. This is all to result in the abounding, overflowing of hope in their lives. To put this another way, they are to be filled with joy and peace as they are exercising their faith in God.

The "believing" is to be continuous.  The tense of the verb calls attention to the habitual action of believing. As we go on believing, God will go on filling us with the joy and the peace.

The joy and peace should probably be related directly to the justification which one receives from God by faith. They would be primarily then the joy of being accepted by God, and the knowledge that one has peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the reasons man is a pessimist is the thing he knows about himself. Man knows himself to be a sinner. Though he may not admit it, down in his deepest self he knows himself to be unacceptable before his Creator and God. He senses that the wrath of God abides upon his life. How can there be any hope in this life or for the life to come in such a state? The only way a man can ever have hope in this life or confidence for the life to come is to know that his sins have been forgiven, to know that he has been justified before God. When he received this justification from God by faith as a free gift, then he can begin to have hope. His hope can overflow when he realizes that the wrath of God no longer abides upon him now, and when death comes that he will be received into the divine presence as a son. Since this privilege comes by faith, hope comes by faith. It is only as one goes on depending upon the work of Christ on his behalf that he can go on overflowing in genuine hope. Such a hope will always have the companions of joy and peace.

Is hope missing from your life? Do you seem to be short of joy and peace? Check on your faith! Are you still depending upon Christ Jesus alone for salvation? If so, then there should be the abounding of hope. A man should never be in despair when he is trusting Christ alone for the gift of eternal life. Since Christ cannot fail or lie, why should he worry?

THE LIFE ABOUNDING IN HOPE COMES THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT
The presence of the Holy Spirit in your life provides a basis for your hope. The Lord tells us that He, the Holy Spirit is the seal of our redemption. He has marked us as belonging to God, and thereby assures us that He will claim us at the last day. The mark God will look for at the last day will be the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He is also the earnest or down payment toward that God. He is a foretaste of the final victory. Should I not be able to face the future with a confident expectation if I know that the Holy Spirit of God is dwelling in my heart?

Of course, the absence of the Holy Spirit means that I have no basis for hope. if the Holy Spirit is not in your heart, it is a sure sign that you do not belong to God. It is a sure sign that God will not claim you at the last day. You are missing the true mark of divine ownership.

However, the power of the Holy Spirit also plays a part in our abounding in hope, When you begin discussing His power, you do not have to talk in the abstract, There have been some wonderful demonstrations of the Holy Spirit's power in history. Of course the supreme demonstration of the Holy Spirit's power was the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord from the dead. It was the Holy Spirit who quickened the dead body of the Lord Jesus. He lives today as evidence of the mighty power of the Spirit. In addition to this, it is well to keep in mind that all of the mighty signs and wonders performed by Jesus were really the works of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was able to express His power through the life of our Lord in these wonderful works of mercy.

But now the Holy Spirit uses His power to cause hope to abound in my life. He does this by bearing witness to my spirit that 1 am a child of God. He does this by enabling me to overcome the struggles against the flesh. He does this by transforming me daily increasingly into the likeness of the Lord Jesus. He does this by providing for me divine guidance in the pathways of life. He does this as He empowers me in my service for the Lord. All of these things contribute to the development of hope and confidence in my life.

Do you see why I would have hope. Why should I despair or be pessimistic about any situation? Can not the Holy Spirit who raised Christ from the dead do whatever may need to be done? This should enable me to have hope concerning my weak brother in the Lord. As long as I am aware of what the Holy Spirit is able to do I should not despair. Surely if the Holy Spirit could bring Jesus back from the grave, He should be able to help my brother come to maturity and victory. It should also give me hope and confident expectation for my own life. The outcome of things does not depend upon what I am able to do but upon what the Holy Spirit is able to do. Is He not able to give victory today, and raise me from the dead unto life eternal at the last day? The power of the Holy Spirit then provides us a basis for hope.

Let me remind you that this prayer is a promise. You can have a life overflowing with hope and confidence. You can be marked by a confident expectation concerning the future. The secret? Such hope must come from God. It will come from God as you walk in dependence upon God by faith. It will come from God through the Holy Spirit whom God has placed in your heart. The Holy Spirit is able to make your life to literally overflow with hope and confidence. Why not claim this prayer as your promise from God? Why keep on walking in doubt and despair when you can walk in hope?