Hope Deferred Is Hope Desired

Delivered by Trennie L. Williams

Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church

Sunday, December 3, 2017
Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire is fulfilled, it is a tree of life.

(Proverbs 13:12)
Hope is equivalent to expectation. When we expect something, we have hope for it to come to fruition. We tend to defer things than cannot take place at the initial time of thought. Deferring is not bad for mankind. There are many times when matters must be deferred to make the best of its effort. When your hope is deferred, its delay is the anticipation for great things to happen. And, when you anticipate what God has in store for you, your fulfilled hope is a delightful satisfaction. Your blessing is a tree of life. 
My soul languishes and grows faint for Your salvation, but I hope in Your word. My eyes fail, watching for [the fulfillment of] Your promise. I say, When will You comfort me? For I have become like a bottle [a wineskin blackened and shriveled] in the smoke [in which it hangs], yet do I not forget Your statutes.

(Psalm 119:81-83)
1. Hope is the container of your faith.

a. Hope is a powerful thing. Without hope, you have nothing to contain faith.

b. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. (Hebrews 11:1)
2. Hope is of God. 

a. The Lord wants us to have hope in Him and His promises.

b. For God is not unjust so as to overlook your work and the love that you have shown for his name in serving the saints, as you still do. And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:10-12)
3. Hope is the ticket to life now and forever.

a. So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf…. (Hebrews 6:17-20)