“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” (Romans 15:13)

Look around. Most of the people we see suffer from one problem: no hope. These people may have causes and crusades, but they are so empty. They just exist form birth to death with no real peace in their souls and no hope to sustain them.

I personally like how Paul started off our text, “Now may the God of hope.” Hope means a confident expectation. Truly God is the source of our “great expectations.”

What are these expectations? Joy and peace. Joy relates to the delight of seeing our hopes fulfilled and peace results from the assurance that our God will fulfill those hopes. Joy and peace together express “the apostle’s deep desire for all believers to have total spiritual satisfaction in their beloved Savior and Lord.” (MacArthur)

Notice it is not partial joy and peace, but all joy and peace. This “all” provides satisfaction in the circumstances of life.

“In believing” is the condition of being filled with all joy and peace. We must simply trust our God to fill us with joy and peace. When we trust our God, we abound in hope or better, to have more than enough hope. How many of us regularly dwell here?

Notice this trust is not by our own power or ability, but by the power of the Holy Spirit. It is He who energizes us to have confidence in God, in His workings and in His purposes.

The message from this verse is: no matter what we are facing, don’t lose hope in our God. Just a few days ago, I faced a situation that put this truth to the test. I had an appointment with the oral surgeon to remove six molars. Now, I hate going to the dentist for regular checkups must less to have teeth removed. I had to come to the point where I confided in Christ that I trusted Him in this situation, and He gave me hope and that produced joy and peace. He helped me through this trial of my faith (even though the oral surgeon told me later he decided to remove two more molars while he was removing the other six).

In Christ,

Pastor Stevens