What we have here is a hope for gospel victory. God the Father has chosen a people for himself.

God the son has died for those sinners.

God the Holy Spirit is going to win those people and give them new hearts and assemble them in the people of God.

He cannot lose.

So how does the hope of the gospel make us bold?

That's the question John Piper explores in 2 Corinthians 3 1 to 12 in this

episode of Light and Truth. The sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on July 20th, 1986.

Our text is 2 Corinthians, chapter 3 12 is very simple and very straightforward.

Since we have such a hope, we are very bold. You can see immediately why I think that boldness is a fruit of hope.

It says that because we have this great hope the result is our boldness.

And so right off the bad it applies itself to our lives if we're not

Fearless in our acts of righteousness and if we are not unashamed of the gospel and if we are not

straightforward about the truth of God, probably this text says the issue is a defective hope. Either we're

ignorant about what our hope is or could be or we just have never thought perhaps

about the connection between the strength and certainty of our hope and the

boldness that we have in Christ and yet this text makes the connection very clear. Since we have such a hope,

we are very bold. Now the verse, the text, verse 12, comes in the middle of a perplexing chapter. It leaves many

readers in a great fog. And yet we do have to ask what is this hope when he says such a hope. He has a particular

hope in mind that he's talking about. And what is this boldness? We have to blow away at least

enough of the fog in this chapter to see what the hope and what the boldness is that he's talking

about in verse 12. So let's go now to his statement

in 2 Corinthians 3 verses 4 to 6 such as the confidence that we have through

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