Session 6 - The Christian Virtue of Hope. (2)

Hope. An expectation of the fulfillment of something desired or promised. Also: Future Hope; Longing; Yearning

Hope from The Lexham Bible Dictionary

HOPE The confidence that, by integrating God’s redemptive acts in the past with trusting human responses in the present, the faithful will experience the fullness of God’s goodness both in the present and in the future. Biblical faith rests on the trustworthiness of God to keep His promises. The biblical view of hope is thus significantly different from that found in ancient Greek philosophy. The Greeks recognized that human beings expressed hope by nature; however, this kind of hope reflects both good and bad experiences. The future was thus a projection of one’s own subjective possibilities (Bultmann, “ἐλπίς, elpis,” 2.517). Biblical hope avoids this subjectivity by being founded on something that provides a sufficient basis for confidence in its fulfillment: God and His redemptive acts as they culminate in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The Kilns - Oxford, England

Sanctuary of St. Mary The Virgin

Eric Metaxas.

There are no ordinary people.

One has never talked to a mere mortal.

Each person’s nature is priceless. None of us can know what another may become (Good or Bad). Therefore, with all these formidable possibilities, let’s help each other.

Eternal Destiny awaits all of us.

Mortal - Nations, cultures, art, politics, friendships, loves, ...

Immortal - Those with whom we marry, joke with, work with, ...

Hope is a Christian Virtue which we are ment to exercise.

The ones who can afford the most are often the most bored.

Misuse them and we become slaves.

Phillip Yancey.

The world is good.

The world is broken.

The world will be restored.

God cares more. (Habakkuk).

Lewis followed his deep internal sense of longing. He knew the world was good. He sensed it in many ways. But, he longed for “something more”. His longing was never satisfied “here”.

Bringing different worlds (matter … Super-natural) together through his imagination.

Good things in this world are copies of good things in the super-natural world (Heb. 11:1).

“Drippings of Grace”.

Wetting our appetite for what lies ahead.

God is an artist lavishing beauty all over the earth.

What’s an atheist to do when he sees something beautiful (deep sense of gratitude) and there’s no one to thank?

There is continuity between the two world’s. This world will be restored. Eden will return.

Desires will let you down.

Won’t ultimately satisfy.

Can make you a slave (Addict).

Three Possibilities.

The Fool’s Way.

The Way of the Disillusioned (Reasonable Man).

Lives routinely and realistically.

Ask yourself;

Is it better to live as if there were more to life only to learn there is not?

Or is it better to live as if there is no more to life only to learn there is more?

The typical human being living the typical life may, from to time, ask “Is there a better way?”

Suppose “Infinite Happiness” really is there. What a lost opportunity!

The Christian Way.

According to Lewis, desires which can’t be satisfied here means we were meant to be somewhere else ultimately. Joy is ok. God’s gifts are to be enjoyed. But, they will let us down here because they are copies.

Live for “Here” or for “Hereafter”.

Amphibians? Live for Heaven and you’ll get the earth thrown in!! Aim at earth and you will get neither!

Those who thought about Heaven (God - One Person) more accomplished the most on earth (“You go where you think”. - Tozer) When you think about God you will help more.

“… your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven ...”

Live with feet in both worlds for an audience of one, God !

We will benefit and so will the world.

Shotover Hill - Oxford England.

Our longing (Joy) is built in. A longing for Heaven. A longing for Home. (Our true home.)

Mere Christianity (Chapter 4: Morality and Psychoanalysis)

Chapter 4: Morality and Psychoanalysis Page 92

And that leads on to my second point. People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.

“Green Hills taught him and Warner, his brother, as children, “longing” (“Not far off but unattainable”).

Sermons, on Several Occasions (Sermon 141: On the Holy Spirit)

But when man would not be guided by the Holy Spirit, it left him. When be would be wise in his own way, and in his own strength, and did not depend in simplicity upon his heavenly Father, the seed of a superior life was recalled from him. For he was no longer fit to be formed into a heavenly condition, when he had so unworthy a longing for, or rather dependence upon, an earthly fruit, which he knew God would not bless to him; no longer fit to receive supernatural succours, when he could not be content with his happy state towards God, without an over-curious examination into it.

Lewis was haunted by books, dreams, … . He believed we all are.

God In Three Persons.

The Object of Our Desire.