Our Source of Hope

Various Texts

©December 26th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent

Hope is an interesting word in our society. When we talk about hope, we are talking about a desire for what we want to happen in the future. Much of the time when we use the word hope, its synonym would be “wishful thinking”, like I hope the Cubs win the world series this year. But other times, we hope for something somewhat grounded in reality, as in I hope I get the raise my boss promised me this year. Hope can have many meanings in our world today.

Because these are the most common ways in which we use the word hope, it doesn’t mean a lot. These kinds of hope have no power, they are just wishful thinking. This kind of hope doesn’t help us as we face the world around us, because we have no assurance that what we want will actually come to pass. Today we want to talk about a different kind of hope—a confident hope of our future that enables us to keep pressing forward, no matter what we face in the present. This kind of hope is not mere wishful thinking, it is a confident belief that what was promised will come to pass.

Most people view our world today as pretty hopeless. Many have concluded that our world is so messed up that there is no real hope of anything getting any better. This causes many to despair. Many feel hopeless as they look at their lives. They see no way out of the current mess they are in.

Christ, however, provides a means for us to have hope, even in unhopeful times. As we look around, we may not have much hope that our government can fix the problems that exist, we may not have much faith in other human beings, or in our society…but we should have a confident hope that God is still working, and He is still on the throne. Christians have a hope that is not anchored to our circumstances, but to the person of Jesus Christ. Such hope is something I believe the world longs to have.

The Basis for Hope

The hope we see in the Bible is not wishful thinking, it is not simply a positive mental attitude. The hope we see in the Bible is a confidence in the outcome of the future. When Christians speak of the hope they have for the future, they are saying they are certain that God will bring these things to pass.

So what gives us such confidence? How can Christians be confident in their hope for the future? The Christian’s hope is not anchored to their circumstances, but to a person. Our hope is anchored to God. There are several reasons the Christian can have confident hope.

First is God’s track record. If we look at the Bible (and our own lives) we can see that when God makes promises, He has consistently followed through on them. When God says something is going to happen it does. Because of God’s perfect track record in the past, we have ample reason to confidently trust in his faithfulness in the future.

Think of it like this. Most of us know someone who has trouble getting places on time. For whatever reason, no matter what they do, they always seem to arrive late. These are the kind of people that when they tell you a time they will be there, you know to add 10-15 (or more!) minutes. As a matter of fact, you might even be surprised if they arrived on time!

Contrast that with someone who is the epitome of punctuality. These are the kind of people who might have been in the military or had Tim Lafferty as a coach (or both!). Coach Lafferty used to (and maybe still does) drill into his players that 15 minutes early is on-time and on-time is late. Such people are always there when they say they are going to be. These are the kind of people that if they tell you they will be there at 7:00 and they haven’t arrived by 7:01, you are calling them to make sure they are ok.

This is the way it is with the Lord, but on a much larger scale. God has consistently shown himself faithful in the past. Whatever He promised, He has delivered. Even when what He promised seemed impossible, the Lord has come through. He never misses His deadlines, and He never fails. As such, we can take Him at His word.

We see this throughout the Old Testament, when God promised victory, the Israelites were victorious, even against seemingly impossible odds. And when God promised defeat and destruction, it happened, no matter how hard people tried to stop it.

We see it clearly in the Christmas story. For hundreds of years, the Jews were waiting for the promised Messiah to come. And when Jesus arrived, all of God’s promises were fulfilled perfectly.

We can have a confident hope, not because we trust in the people around us to do what we expect, but because we know God will do what He promised.

The second reason we can have confident hope is because of the resurrection of Jesus. Jesus coming into the world was an incredibly significant event and it should bolster our faith immensely. The birth of Jesus was the ultimate kept promise of God. Jesus the promised Messiah, and He came to the earth and lived and died exactly the way the scriptures had foretold.

But Jesus’ existence alone does not give us the confidence we need to face the challenges of life. There have been many people who made claimed to be great teachers like Jesus. Some people argue that Jesus is not unique and that all religions are basically the same. But there is one significant difference. Jesus, like all other religious figures died. But unlike every other religious figure, Jesus did not stay dead. Jesus rose from the grave on the third day, just as He had foretold that he would.

Admittedly, this sounds a bit far-fetched. None of us have ever experienced someone coming back to life after being dead for three days. So how can we be confident that this man who lived 2000 years ago actually came back to life? There are a few reasons we know this is true.

· The opponents of Jesus couldn’t disprove the resurrection. If Jesus was still dead, all they had to do was take people to the body. The fact that the resurrection story continued is a testament to the fact that it was true, because it was a pretty easy claim to disprove otherwise.

· The disciples changed drastically. They went from people who were denying Jesus, hiding from the Jewish leaders, and meeting behind locked doors to people who were standing in the temple courts, boldly defying the religious leaders, claiming they had seen the resurrected Christ. What else can explain that fact than that they really had?

· Not a single one of Jesus’ disciples ever denied the resurrection, even though they were tortured and killed for that belief. The only thing that makes sense is that they knew Jesus really had risen from the grave. If they had been trying to perpetrate a hoax, there is no way every one of the disciples would have persisted in the rouse even to the point of execution. What gain would there possibly be for them to continue deceiving people? None. The only explanation was that they had an unshakable confidence that Jesus had risen from the dead.

There are certainly more reasons we can be confident of the truth of the resurrection, but these stand prominently in my mind. And if Jesus rose from the grave, just as He said He would, then we can be certain that Jesus’ testimony can be trusted.

What Do We Hope For?

So we can have confidence in God’s faithfulness, but the big question is what kind of hope do we have? What are we, as believers in Christ able to hope for? There are several things.

First, we have the hope of resurrection, or life beyond the grave. This is one of the greatest blessings of being a believer in Christ—we know that this life is not all there is, and that when we die, we will spend eternity in heaven! Listen to how Paul explains this truth in 1 Corinthians 15

12 But tell me this—since we preach that Christ rose from the dead, why are some of you saying there will be no resurrection of the dead? 13 For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. 15 And we apostles would all be lying about God—for we have said that God raised Christ from the grave. But that can’t be true if there is no resurrection of the dead. 16 And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is useless and you are still guilty of your sins. 18 In that case, all who have died believing in Christ are lost! 19 And if our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world.

20 But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. 21 So you see, just as death came into the world through a man, now the resurrection from the dead has begun through another man. 22 Just as everyone dies because we all belong to Adam, everyone who belongs to Christ will be given new life. 23 But there is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised as the first of the harvest; then all who belong to Christ will be raised when he comes back. (1 Corinthians 15:12-23, NLT)

Paul says that because of Christ’s resurrection, we can be certain that we will also be resurrected. He tells us that we do not need to fear what lies beyond the grave, because Christ has promised that we will experience new life, and He has proven this by rising from the grave Himself. Why does this matter? For a few reasons,

· It means that we know this is not the whole story. I love how C.S. Lewis gives us a glimpse of what our time on earth is like in the Chronicles of Narnia. As he describes the end of the earthly lives of the children, he writes this, “All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”[1]We have a confident hope that what we see now is not all there is.

· It means we can have hope in the face of the death of those we love. I am fond of saying (even to myself) at funerals of dear friends who are believers, that as I leave their earthly remains at the cemetery I am not saying goodbye, but rather, see you later. This is an incredible comfort in the face of loss.

· It means we, as believers, can face our own death with confidence and hope rather than fear and dread. Those who have no hope of life beyond the grave utterly fear death, because they have no idea what happens next. The best case scenario is nothing…but that’s not much comfort. It means that death is the end of the story, and our lives are basically a waste. Christians can face death knowing what lies ahead—resurrection and eternal life with God. Paul talked about this as he faced his own death. He said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain.” In other words, even death is a win-win situation for believers.

Second, we have the hope that our good deeds mean something. I don’t understand all of the blessings of heaven, but I do know that God promises us blessings in heaven for the things we do on earth. Look at Jesus’ promise in Matthew 6,

19 “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroys them, and where thieves break in and steal. 20 Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. 21 Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. (Matthew 6:19-21, NLT)

Jesus tells us not to live only for earthly blessings, because those will disappear. He tells us instead to live for heavenly blessings, which will last forever. I don’t fully understand what kinds of blessings we will have in heaven, but these verses (and the many others like them) remind us that the things we do in this life matter. And though our heavenly inheritance is not secured by our good deeds, God does tell us that the things we do in this life will be rewarded.

This means that we can continue to do the things we know are good and right even if there doesn’t seem to be any payoff for us in sight. Let’s face it, sometimes when we try to do what is right, it doesn’t seem like it does any good. Nobody seems to care, or worse, those who are doing the wrong things seem to be getting greater blessings than us! But God promises us that the good things we do in this life will always have a heavenly payoff, even if they do not always have an earthly one. This should enable us to live confidently for the Lord, no matter what seems to be happening in the world right now.

Third, we have the hope of justice being served. Sometimes it seems like evil is winning. This has caused many to despair and to conclude that the world is hopeless. Christians do not need to take this approach. We need not despair, because God has promised that He is going to bring about justice in our world.

24 After that the end will come, when he will turn the Kingdom over to God the Father, having destroyed every ruler and authority and power. 25 For Christ must reign until he humbles all his enemies beneath his feet. 26 And the last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For the Scriptures say, “God has put all things under his authority.” (Of course, when it says “all things are under his authority,” that does not include God himself, who gave Christ his authority.) 28 Then, when all things are under his authority, the Son will put himself under God’s authority, so that God, who gave his Son authority over all things, will be utterly supreme over everything everywhere. (1 Corinthians 15:24-28, NLT)

These verses remind us that no matter who appears to be in power now, the One who will ultimately sit on the throne is Jesus. People can pretend like God does not exist. They can say and do all sorts of evil things. While it may seem like those people face no consequences for their sin, the Bible tells us that will not always be the case. The scriptures tell us that “every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

There is coming a day when God will say, “No more!” And He will bring all things on earth to an end. On that day, all sin will be punished. Those who thought they could “get away” with things will find themselves mistaken. Justice will be served. For the Christian, the penalty for our sin is borne by Jesus; everyone else must bear it themselves.

Knowing this gives us a different perspective in life. We should not make decisions based on what seems most expedient here and now. We recognize there is a much bigger story at play, one that will not be measured only by what we accomplish in the eyes of the world. It enables us to live with integrity, even when others do not. It enables us to forgive, even when others do not recognize their wrongdoing. And it enables us to have peace, even as our world seems to be going to pieces. We can have the confident hope that God will ultimately ensure justice is served—so we can leave that in His hands rather than trying to do it ourselves.

Conclusion

Christians have a hope that the rest of the world longs for—and one they don’t understand. The movie The Shawshank Redemption tells the story of the life of prisoners inside the Shawshank Prison. At one point, Red (played by Morgan Freeman) tells one of the other prisoners that hope is a dangerous thing. He says it can drive a man insane. There’s no use for something like that in prison.

This is the kind of hope the world tries to cling to—a hope that doesn’t have any assurance behind it. It’s simply positive thinking and trying to convince ourselves that things aren’t so bad. But there’s no confidence that this will actually happen. Red’s right, such hope will drive people insane—it certainly won’t actually help people.

I often hear non-believers spout Christian platitudes like, “Everything happens for a reason” or “It will all work out in the end.” Here’s the problem—they have no basis to believe these things are actually true! If they do not have the hope that comes from faith in Christ, then they have no real hope at all…just wishful thinking. But Christian hope is different. Christians can think positively about the future because we know the One who is directing it! And we can be confident of the outcome because He’s told us what He’s going to do.

There’s a reason that Christmas is such a big deal. It is the time when we began to see God’s plan for the world unfold. It was a plan He had been working toward since before the creation of the world. Today I remind you that God’s plan is not finished yet. Christians have evidence which should bolster our hope. We have the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus to give us confidence that all God promises will ultimately come to pass.

Paul said that if our hope is only for this life, then we are to be pitied above everyone else. No matter what trials come, no matter how bad the world gets, no matter how much evil seems to be winning—we know how the story ends. God is on the throne, and we have an assurance of everlasting life, and the knowledge that what we do now has eternal consequences. This means we as Christians have a confident hope for the future—and it means we can live with a completely different outlook from the rest of the world. In short, because of Jesus, we can have the kind of hope the world around us longs to have, but we have the assurance that our hope is real.

©December 26th, 2021 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent

[1]Lewis, C.S., The Last Battle