Hope Today & Hope To Come

Well, we are in a bit of an in between at the moment. We finished our Thanksgiving series last week, and we’ll start our Christmas / Advent series next week. And I’m not sure if my heart knew something was coming, but during the week I felt this encouragement from the Lord to speak on Hope. And not just hope from a “I hope it happens” perspective, but the gentle and fragile balance we carry between / / the hope for now and the hope of what’s to come.

At the time I started preparing for this message I did not know if, when, or what the final outcome for Mike would be, and I was just about to find out that my Father-in-law, Kelley’s father, had passed away. It was Friday morning.

Now, if you know Cecil at all, he’s been ready to walk through those pearly gates for a long time, not that any of us were ready to let him. And one of his biggest worries was that he would die in a hospital. The last 13 years have been hard, but I would say really the last 6 years have been especially rough for both him and the family. He’s been in and out of the hospital a lot. We thought for sure we would lose him many times. And yet, he kept going, like the energizer bunny.

But this past Friday he was at home, in his chair where he rested, having talked to all of his family either in person or on the internet for Thanksgiving, and there he went to be with the Lord.

And you might not have known him, I know not everyone here did. And you may not have even experienced loss recently, or even around the holidays, and I hope for your sake that is true. But in the moments we found out that he had passed there are two feelings that go through you, and that’s what I want to talk about today because I think that is relevant for all of us at all times.

And I would say this of my Father-in-law, I would say this of Mike, I would say this of every person going through something that we are praying for a miracle to happen. Up to the moment he was no longer with us, we had hope, hope for his healing, hope for health, hope for change. And what I mean by that is that we know the power of God to save, set free, deliver and heal. It is real. It is powerful. And we need it.

And as soon as he was no longer there in body, and we knew that he was with the Lord, although at the same time as processing and feeling deep sorrow and grief, we knew we could rest assured in the hope of his salvation in Jesus Christ.

As bible believing, Jesus Christ confessing, Holy Spirit empowered Christians, this is our reality, or maybe we could call it a tension, or a balance. That we have a hope for immediate salvation, and yet we also have a hope for an eternal salvation regardless of what our immediate situation may look like or dictate for us.

And so the word / / hope, which by definition means, a confident expectation in a positive outcome, carries something of a dual meaning for us as Christians. We place our hope in Christ for eternal salvation, and yet we also have a hope in the powerful work of Christ on the cross for this life we live.

I want to take a little journey through scripture this morning and look at a word that is often used in connection with this thought of hope, or the working of Christ in our lives. It’s the greek word, / / sozo, and it means, to save, but it also means to be made whole, to heal, to keep safe and sound, and the way that scripture uses it paints this picture of what is and what is to come, probably better than anything else.

So we’re going to read some stories from scripture that this word pops up in and that we need to pop up in our lives today.

The first story is from Luke 8:40-56. / / On the other side of the lake the crowds welcomed Jesus, because they had been waiting for him. Then a man named Jairus, a leader of the local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus’ feet, pleading with him to come home with him. His only daughter, who was about twelve years old, was dying.

As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately the bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.”

When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

While he was still speaking to her, a messenger arrived from the home of Jairus, the leader of the synagogue. He told him, “Your daughter is dead. There’s no use troubling the Teacher now.”

But when Jesus heard what had happened, he said to Jairus, “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith, and she will be healed.”

When they arrived at the house, Jesus wouldn’t let anyone go in with him except Peter, John, James, and the little girl’s father and mother. The house was filled with people weeping and wailing, be he said, “Stop the weeping! She isn’t dead; she’s only asleep.”

But the crowd laughed at him because they all knew she had died. Then Jesus took her by the hand and said in a loud voice, “My child, get up!” And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up! Then Jesus told them to give her something to eat. Her parents were overwhelmed, but Jesus insisted that they not tell anyone what had happened.

Ok, this is such a beautiful story, and this passage of scripture would preach a hundred different ways, but this morning I want to look specifically at this word we’re talking about, sozo, to be saved, or made whole, or healed, which is used twice in this story.

So, we have this woman, she’s been sick for a long time. And she’s done everything she can to try and be healed. One of the other gospels says she had spent all she had on doctors and wasn’t any better. I think this says so much about the process we walk through toward a miracle. This woman has done everything she personally can, she’s also sought out the best of medical care, and she’s still sick. She desperately needs a miracle. And then she sees Jesus, and her faith tells her, if I can only touch the hem of his garment. If I can just reach this one who IS the healer. Who doesn’t rely on the ways of man, who isn’t a doctor, but is the embodied raw, incredible power of God to heal, and I can touch him, I will be healed.

And she does. She forces her way through this mob of people surrounding Jesus and just gets a faint grasp of the end of his clothing. And what happens? Scripture says, immediately the bleeding stopped.

Jesus turns around because he feels that power surge through him.

I love this. Because I think it shows us the relationship Jesus has with the power of the Holy Spirit. I love Peter’s response, “Jesus, everyone is touching you. Look at all the people.” And verse 46 says that Jesus explains that he felt power go out of him. The word for power is / / dynamis, and it means just that, power, mighty work, strength, miracle - it’s where we eventually would get our word dynamite. But the reason I say I think this is a beautiful connection between Jesus and the Holy Spirit is because in Acts 1:8, when Jesus is telling his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. This is right before he ascends into heaven. He says to them, / / “…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you...” Same word. dynamis. You will receive dynamis, power, when? When the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

When did Jesus start ministering? Not until he was baptized by John the Baptist and the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit, like a dove, descended from heaven upon him. And from that point on you begin to see Jesus working in power, dynamis.

Yes, Jesus is fully God, yet he took on humanity itself and became fully man. That’s what we believe. That he existed on this earth as both. But there is an honor within the Trinity. You see it over and over again in how Jesus talks about His Father, “The Father sent me...” “I listen to His voice”… and of the Holy Spirit, after being baptized, he is led into the wilderness BY the Holy Spirit to be tempted by the devil. He’s putting his trust in the Holy Spirit in that moment. God does not, within the trinity, operate independently of each other, but in communion with each other.

So, Jesus, full of the Spirit of God, in tune with that Spirit, perceives that the power of the Spirit has moved through his body, through his clothing, left him and has done something in someone who touched him.

The girl is terrified. She’s afraid she’s going to get in trouble. And when everyone else starts backing off saying, “wasn’t me!” she realizes she has to come forward.

And when she does, listen to what Jesus says to her. / / “Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace.”

There’s our word, sozo - your faith has made you “well”. In this instance, what does it mean? healed or whole. Right? Her body is healed. The issue she had been dealing with for 12 years had immediately stopped.

Alright, second time this word is used, as we continue the story.

A messenger comes running in, he’s from the house of Jairus, the man who had begged Jesus to come heal his daughter. That’s what they were doing, they were on their way, until this interruption happened.

The messenger says, “Don’t bother, there’s no point in you coming now. I’m sorry Jairus, your daughter is dead. There’s no point in having the miracle worker come, that time has passed.”

I think using what just happened as a lesson for Jairus and everyone listening, he had told the woman, “Your faith has made you well” and he says to Jairus in vs 50, / / “Don’t be afraid. Just have faith, and she will be healed.” or the ESV says, “Do not fear; only believe, and she will be well.”

There’s that word. “she will be ‘well’” - sozo. So now sozo doesn’t just mean to heal, or be made whole, but now it’s speaking of the power that can raise someone from the dead.

So, he goes to the home. And Luke says that when he tells everyone to stop crying because she’s only sleeping, scripture says they all laugh at him because they all knew that she was dead. But, sure enough, Jesus takes her by the hand and says, “My child, get up!” and note this, just in case you thought, ok, maybe she wasn’t actually dead, maybe she was just sleeping, scripture says this, / / And at that moment her life returned, and she immediately stood up!

“her life returned”

Ok, so sozo is the power to heal, it’s the power to bring back life, now, let’s look at another story.

Kaylee and I just watched this conversation on an episode of the Chosen on Friday night.

It’s the story of Nicodemus and his conversation in the middle of the night with Jesus. And some people have issue with the Chosen taking literary license to fill in the gaps that we maybe don’t have. But I don’t. As long as you watch it with the understanding that the creators are doing exactly that, filling in gaps that we don’t have in writing - back story, and character development. Anyway, their portrayal of Nicodemus is fantastic. He is a truly faithful man of God that is in deep question about this man, Jesus of Nazareth. He has spent his life waiting for the Messiah, but is also a prominent Jewish religious leader and so any proclamation he makes is going to carry such a huge weight. He doesn’t know how to respond, how to react, what to believe or what to say.

And we enter this portion of Scripture. They show Jesus and Nicodemus on a roof talking in the dark of night.

/ / There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. “Rabbi,” he said, “we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.”

Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”

“What do you mean?” exclaimed Nicodemus. “How can an old man go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?”

Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it wants. Just as you can hear the wind but can’t tell where it comes from or where it is going, so you can’t explain how people are born of the Spirit.”

“How are these things possible?” Nicodemus asked.

Jesus replied, “You are respected Jewish teacher, and yet you don’t understand these things? I assure you, we tell you what we know and have seen, and yet you won’t believe our testimony. Gut if you don’t believe me when I tell you about earthly things, how can you possibly believe if I tell you about heavenly things? No one has ever gone to heaven and returned. But the Son of Man has come down from heaven. And as Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him will have eternal life.

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him...”

I wanted to read through all of that lead up because the context is important. You can see the question and struggle that this religious leader is in. He doesn’t understand. He’s trying to connect the dots here.

He has seen the sozo we’ve talked about. Probably not the raising of the dead at this point. If you read a bible that lays out the Gospels in Chronological order, meaning, the order they believe things happened in, rather than reading the books in Canonical order, meaning the order we have them in our bibles, then the story we read in Luke about the woman being healed and the child being raised from the dead, comes after the story we are reading in John about Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus. But, John 2:23, which my Chronological bible includes as part of the story about Nicodemus says, / / Because of the miraculous signs Jesus did in Jerusalem at the Passover celebration, many began to trust in him… and then it begins the story of Nicodemus

So Nicodemus has seen this “sozo” happening, people being healed, people being made whole.

But then Jesus explains something new, and again using this word, sozo.

John 3:16 is probably the most well known verse in the bible, it’s been on the cheeks of our favorite athletes for years. And this is Jesus speaking, / / “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

Ok, so that’s the goal, that’s the purpose. Eternal life. But if you know me I like to put vs 17 together with vs 16 because it paints a more full picture.

He goes on to say in vs 17, / / “God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.”

And there’s our word, sozo, “to save”...

So, Nicodemus, a teacher of the law, has seen the sozo of Christ, the Messiah, in the healings and miracles, and now Jesus is saying not only that, but because he is the Son of God, sent into the world for the redemption of mankind, sozo is not just about physical, or emotional, or relational healing, it’s not just about the body on this earth. Sozo is not just about the liberation of the people of Israel from the Romans, it’s not about making the nation of Israel whole again, but it’s about all of humanity finding eternal life through the salvation of Jesus Christ. For ALL who believe.

We’ve talked about this the last few weeks, that even as we are praying for the Middle East, and as we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and yes, we believe for a united and whole Israel, that is not enough. We want the salvation of all mankind, from the best of the best to the worst of the worst.

And this is truly Jesus’ heart. He expresses it multiple times, and it’s one of the most offensive things to the religious leaders of his time, that he wasn’t a militant king, but that he claimed to be God and identify with humanity.

So now we have a couple short stories involving two tax collectors to show Jesus’ plan revealed in this word, sozo.

Luke 5:27-32 is the story of Jesus calling Matthew to be his disciple. Your bible might have him named as Levi. But Levi, or Matthew, same person, and he is a tax collector. The most hated of the Jewish people BY the Jewish people because they were the worst of the worst. I think they might have even hated them more than the Romans. Rome was the occupying force, that’s just what they did, but tax collectors were the worst because they actually chose to betray their own people and work for the Romans collecting their taxes. And a lot of them were cheaters too. Rome was taxing the people too much already, and these greedy Jewish tax collectors would take more than that and pocket the rest, becoming very wealthy, and getting in with the Roman government as well.

So Jesus calls Matthew to become a disciple, and he actually leaves his tax collecting booth, gives up that life and follows Jesus, and they go back to Matthew’s house to have a dinner party. But this makes the Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders, really upset. They say to Jesus’s disciples in Luke 5:30, / / “Why do you eat and drink with such scum?”

Jesus answered them, “Healthy people don’t need a doctor - sick people do. I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.”

Wow. Ok, that’s the first tax collector. I haven’t come for healthy people, but those who are sick and in need of a doctor. And you can just tell he’s not even talking about physical sickness, although, we and the Pharisees questioning him know he's already proving he can handle actual sickness and disease.

Now to a second story that ties this together. 14 chapters later, in Luke 19 is the story of a man named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in a particular region. And he had become really rich, but he was also very intrigued by Jesus. Jesus was coming through town, and he was a really short man and the crowd was really big, so he climbs a tree, if you know the children’s song, “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sicamore tree....” ya, I don’t remember the rest. Probably best that way.

But Jesus comes walking through town, sees this man in the tree and says, “Hey, come down from the tree, I need to be a guest in your home today.”

Second tax collector he’s done this too. Imagine that. You go into town, find the richest dude around and say, “Hey, throw me a party tonight at your house.”

Again, this makes the people upset and they say, “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner...”

But Zacchaeus’ encounter with Jesus has completely transformed him. Luke 19:8-10 says, / / Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much.”

Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

Ok, first, little side note here. If you remember the story of the rich young ruler. He asks Jesus what he has to do to be saved. Jesus says keep the commandments. He says, “I have” and Jesus replies, “You lack one thing, go and sell ALL of your possessions and give the money to the poor and come follow me, and you shall be saved.” And scripture tells us that the man went away sad because he was very wealthy and just couldn’t do it.

Some people have taken that to mean that Christians shouldn’t have money. Some people take scripture out of context and say that money is the root of all evil. That’s not what scripture says, it says that money is the root of all kinds of evil. This story here about Zacchaeus shows us the underlying problem is not the money, but the heart. Jesus did not say, “Whoa whoa whoa, half isn’t enough buddy…you gotta give it all away, become poor… then you can be saved.” No, he says, “Salvation has come to this home today.” If you’re filthy rich, and you give half away, you’re probably still pretty rich. Money is rarely the problem, it’s the heart behind the money that either knows how to and is willing to truly follow Jesus or not.

Alright, now back to our journey through the word… When Jesus says, “For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.” it is the same word we’ve read all this morning, sozo, to seek and SAVE [sozo] those who are lost.

So, we’ve seen sozo to heal, sozo to raise from the dead, sozo to give eternal life, and now Jesus declaring that he came to seek out and sozo, to save the worst of the worst, ALL those who are lost.

And this brings us to what Paul tells the church in Rome. Romans 10:9-13 says, If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by openly declaring your faith that you are saved. As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”

Jew and Gentile are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

vs 9 and 13 both use the same word, sozo.

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

So, why this journey through scripture today?

I said to someone this past week, I’m so grateful that we serve a God of miracles and eternal life. And I think that is so important to remember, that the greatest miracle we experience is not actually in this life, but it’s on the other side of the grave. Unless we are fortunate enough to be here for the return of Jesus, we will all pass away, but in that passing, if we have given our lives to Him, we will experienced the greatest miracle there is.

Jesus was talking to Martha, the sister of Lazarus, before he raised him from the dead. And he said this, reading from the ESV, / / “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live...”

Yes, I want to be healed in this life. I’m praying for myself these days, right? We all want to experience and CAN experience the sozo of Jesus in our bodies in the here and now. Yes, I want to live as long as I can here, healthy and happy and whole (sozo, sozo and sozo) with those I love. But the greatest miracle we will ever experience is closing our eyes here, and opening them to the face of Jesus in heaven, which is also sozo...

I started by talking about hope. Having hope in Jesus to heal, to set free, even to raise from the dead, hope for sozo.. but ultimately, our hope is the redemption of mankind through the saving grace of Jesus Christ through his death on the cross and his resurrection from the grave.

This week was not easy. This week was actually pretty terrible. One of the worst. And I know that God led me to this, even before my father-in-law and Mike had passed because this is the truth we need in the moment we are in.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 says, For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to harvest... A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance.

For some our grief runs deep this week. And there is a time for that. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t grieve, or you have to get over it and move on fast. Don’t let anyone tell you you have to be ok. It is ok to not be ok in this moment. It is ok to ask question. It is ok to be upset, and to mourn our loss. It’s ok to grieve.

My encouragement to each of you, whether this week has been hard or not. I understand the events of this week have hit some much harder than others, and some of you may not even be really effected by the loss some of us have experienced. But for each of us, my encouragement, and especially to myself, is to hold on to the hope of sozo in Christ Jesus.

My current circumstances do not change the truth of God. They don’t change His ability or His power to work in our lives.

My current grief does not change His mercy and grace. He is still there with us.

My current anger, frustration, pain, question and hurt do not change who He is. He is still comforter, restorer, healer, redeemer and savior.

I was saying to Kelley last night that it’s absolutely uncanny that last week we talked about Psalm 23, / / Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me...

I wasn’t prophesying, I didn’t see what was coming, and yet, maybe God was preparing our hearts for the week ahead.

God, keep us on the path toward your grace and mercy. Keep us bound in your truth.

I’ve shared this before, but a few years ago Kelley and I lost a friend of ours. And for some reason that particular situation hit me really hard. And as I was in my grief, yet talking to the Lord, I felt him lead me to a saying that was central to a prayer movement from the 1700’s. / / “May the Lamb that was slain receive the reward of His suffering.”

And in that moment I understood. Whether on this side of the grave, or on the other side of the grave, the Lamb will have the reward of His suffering.

Cecil Warren is no longer in pain, no longer frustrated with the inabilities of his body. And as difficult as it is to think of life without him, I know those of us who knew and loved him are overjoyed in our hearts that he has received the reward of the suffering of Jesus Christ, full sozo, fully healed, fully made whole, fully alive in Christ for all of Eternity.

And although we lost him too soon. I bawled in the hospital this week as I held Mike’s hand and thought, “I didn’t even know you enough. I wish I would have known you more.” He is not in pain. He is not suffering. He is standing in the presence of Jesus, fully healed, fully made whole, fully alive in Christ for all of Eternity.

This is the hope I hold on to. Till the day I die, I will hope and believe in the power of God to heal me, set me free, deliver me and make me whole, fully sozo’d. And if and when I die somewhere long down the road, I pray, I know that in that moment I will be fully sozo’d, fully made whole in my savior, Jesus Christ.

Because knowing where I’m going means I can live today without the fear of death. Even though I may be walking through the valley of it’s shadow. I don’t have to fear any evil. Because the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, is walking with me.

The hope of eternal life gives me hope for today.