Tag Archives: Hope

Hope for the sake of Jesus

Hope is going somewhere good, by the work of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus.

That is what I have argued in three posts on hope. In summary, Christians look ahead in hope, with joyful hope, and our hope is trust-filled confidence. This final part of the series reminds us that hope is not selfish. Instead, the good outcome of all our hopes is praise to Jesus.

It’s significant that the fulfilment of all Christian hope is the revelation of Jesus Christ, not the revelation of Christians. The focus is him. And the success of our hope results in praise and glory and honour (1 Peter 1:7) – praise to God, I take it.

In my view, the whole of 1 Peter is chock full of the idea of a final reversal: those who presently hope in Jesus, and are slandered for this hope, will be vindicated by the final glory of God. Jesus’ greatness trumps everything – ‘To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.’ (1 Peter 5:11)

This reversal means Christians persevere in honourable conduct knowing mockers will glorify God on the day of visitation (1 Peter 2:12). Slaves are to endure, modelling themselves on Jesus who entrusted himself to God for final vindication (1 Peter 2:23). Reversal happens for wives of unbelieving husbands (3:1), Christians treated with evil and reviling (3:9), all who suffer the temptations of flesh (4:1-5), and believers in ‘fiery trial’ (4:12-13).

It’s as if the universe will say, ‘We judged their hope as folly. But their hope in Jesus was perfect because Jesus is perfect. Praise be to Jesus!’

Jesus is the only source of hope (my previous post). So too Jesus is the final outcome of our hope.

Therefore, putting this into practice, we live every present moment of life for Jesus.

We hope in great devotion for the day Jesus’ name is confessed by every tongue, when every knee bows to him (Philippians 2:9-11). To truly hope for this coming day, we live it today.

Today we confess Jesus, our hope. Today we bend the knee to Jesus, our Lord. Today we show the reality of hope by willingly obeying Jesus’ gospel. Present obedience to the Lord Jesus is an act of subversive hope. Despite not yet seeing his universal rule, we know it and hope for its revelation and therefore live by it.

Present obedience to the Lord Jesus is an act of subversive hope.

So, in 1 Peter, the command to ‘set our hope fully’ on the grace to come leads directly to the call for holiness (1 Peter 1:12-16). This hope also overflows in evangelism, as people quiz us about Jesus (1 Peter 3:15). In Hebrews, holding fast to hope sets us up towards love, good works, and mutual encouragement (Hebrews 10:23-25).

I hope you have gospel hope! Show it to the world in obedience to Jesus.

 


 

Hope by Jesus’ work

In my first two posts on hope, I introduced this description:

Hope is going somewhere good, by the work of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus.

It does not go without saying that Jesus is the one whose work produces real hope. We need to say – again and again – that hope comes from Jesus. That’s what this post is about.

The wonderful hope of every Christian is ‘through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’ (1 Peter 1:3). This hope becomes public ‘at the revelation of Jesus Christ’ (1 Peter 1:7). Hope is of Jesus from start to end. Believers do not create our own hope, but we set our hope completely on Jesus’ return and unveiling (1 Peter 1:13).

This hope is absolutely unlike all other hopes in our world.

The football team hopes to win: their hope looks like training, strategy and years of effort. The movie director hopes for an Academy Award: her hope looks like obsessive attention to detail and passionate communication of vision. The student hopes to graduate: his hope looks like study, assignments and exams.

Any hope in this world depends upon human achievement. And therefore is exceptionally flimsy. Only one team wins the grand final. Most movies bomb. No student ever achieved 100% in every assignment of every course. Human hopes are often seen, justifiably, as close to dreams.

But Christian hope is different because gospel hope comes from Jesus.

Jesus has done it: death is defeated, sin’s sting is gone, the believer’s future is guaranteed. (See my first post.)

Therefore Christian hope has confidence and assurance. Our hope is already safe, so our hope is justified. Jesus is alive, so to trust his hope is right. Jesus guards our hope in heaven, so Christian hope is realism not escapism.

They say that receiving a terminal diagnosis concentrates the mind. That makes sense! “I will die soon – what should I make of my remaining time?”

Hope is just like that, but 100% good. Because of Jesus, every Christian has an ‘eternal life’ diagnosis. It should remove all fear and doubt. “I will live forever by the work of Christ – how assured I am!”

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The next post:
Hope for the sake of Jesus


 

Good hope

In this post I introduced my mini-series on hope. For each post I work of the following description:

Hope is going somewhere good, by the work of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus.

It’s amazingly important, and wonderful, to insist that Christian hope is for the good. Our future is wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.

Post number 1 in this series might have felt a little neutral, or unemotional. That was deliberate, because I wanted us to look ahead and to think well about the certain future we have. And I knew that post number 2 was coming!

As we look ahead and think well, we rejoice (Romans 5:2). We bless our Father in heaven who have given us this living hope (1 Peter 1:3). We’re instructed to rejoice in our hope (Romans 12:12). Our hope is what we boast in (Hebrews 3:6).

As we look ahead and think well, we love and long for the future. We love Jesus, even though we don’t yet see him (1 Peter 1:8). We desire this future so greatly that our eagerness groans (Romans 8:23).

The Christian future – our hope – is so good that of course we want it, and of course we are disappointed that it’s not yet ours. To be with Christ is better by far, even when there are good works to complete here today (Philippians 1:23).

Putting this into practice has two parts.

Firstly, and most obvious, we rejoice and sing and praise God in prayer. We love what lies ahead of us, and engage fully in this good expectation. When Christians sing in joy, it’s a reminder of this good future and it again teaches joy to our hearts.

We must not wait for joy and thanks to well up to perfection before we express them. We instead express our joy and thanks as part of discipleship, training ourselves in godly longing.

Secondly, we are to flee from dead and deathly joys. Rejoicing in the transient hopes of this world will strangle our desire for the real hope we enjoy in Christ. The downward spiral of greed is really joy in ‘things’. The addiction of watching porn promises happiness or some kind of emotional connection, but it’s a false promise.

Too much love for job and career, too much joy in the commendation of neighbours, too much time spent on hobbies and interests … these all kill our boasting in the glory that is to be revealed.

Amid all the tools we have to avoid sin, here is one of the greatest: cultivate joy in the hope of Christ. Do it, because Christian hope is going somewhere good.

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The next posts:
Hope by Jesus’s own work
Hope for the sake of Jesus


 

Hope ahead

The Bible’s idea of hope is a wonderful treasure of many parts. This post is the first in four I plan to write, all based on the following description.

Hope is going somewhere good, by the work of Jesus and for the glory of Jesus.

Hope looks ahead, because hope is going somewhere. Hope is a sure future.

This future includes the resurrection of all, just and unjust, for God’s final reckoning (Acts 24:14-15). This hope is our Christian inheritance, currently under guard in heaven until its unveiling (Colossians 1:5; Hebrews 6:19; 1 Peter 1:3-4). We hope for the glory of God (Romans 5:2). When all boiled down, our hope is Jesus himself (1 Timothy 1:1) – we long for him and we will see him.

There are, of course, false hopes in this world. Money is a greatly deceptive hope (Acts 16:19; 1 Timothy 6:17). Such worldly hopes will fail.

But Jesus does not fail and cannot fail. Hope, when it’s hope in the Lord, does not disappoint us. This hope is already won, already secure, already waiting.

Therefore, putting this into practice, we look ahead.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
1 Peter 1:13

 

We expect this hope, and teach ourselves about it. As we look ahead, we dedicate ourselves to learning what God has said about this hope. We will ever ask: What does our Father say?, Which things has he taught us?, What is the promise of God?

After all, angels long to look into these things (1 Peter 1:12). We would be fools to be uninterested or uncaring! As much as God has said to us about our hope – and no more than God has spoken – let us learn, and so hope well for the guaranteed future we have in God.

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Future posts in the series:
Good hope
Hope by Jesus’ own work
Hope for sake of Jesus


 

Whose hope?

Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the poor.’ Disciples of Jesus are armed in an odd fashion: we don’t take up weapons, but daily take up the cross.

Therefore, it makes sense that Christian hope is not for those who entertain high hopes in this world. Here’s a quotation that captures this powerfully:

The hope about which it [the Bible] speaks is valid for the hopeless and not for the optimists. It is valid for the poor and not for the rich. It is valid for the downtrodden and the insulted so that they will learn to walk uprightly, and all this as it will be in heaven, so already here on this earth. As the book of the promises of God, the Bible … points beyond itself into the future which does not yet fill our present.

(Jürgen Moltmann, quoted in New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.)

 


 

Quick review: Catch-22

Catch-22Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If you like a book that’s listed as a classic, you’re simply following the crowd. But if you dislike the listed classic, you’ve got no taste. Catch-22.

If you enjoy the writing in a novel that narrates awful events, and even looks somewhat amoral, that must make you unfeeling. But if you dismiss a novel that refuses to hide the grizzly nature of life, you’re still unfeeling. Catch-22.

I wanted to read Catch-22 for some time, because it’s a classic. And reading it created my own cases of Catch-22 – the ‘catch’ that is impossible to escape, no matter what you do.

Here are two examples of my catches: the humour is enjoyably off the wall-but I kept wondering if black humour is merely stylish cynicism; there’s great compassion for this world of suffering-but I hated the way women (in particular) were treated in the book.

Catch-22 is so well known that there’s no point me recounting its content or themes, you can find great summaries on the web. So here’s my take on the whole theme of the book: this life is a crazy yet hopeful struggle.

The crazy struggle is everywhere, especially war: horrible deaths, innocent suffering, racketeering, apathy, selfishness, … And Heller captures all this and more.

It’s the hope in Catch-22 that surprised me. The lead character, Yossarian, has most of his friends die. One death in particular is referred to again and again, with increasing detail until we read the whole awful story. I expected a bleak conclusion. Yet Catch-22 ends with the excitement of an unexpected survivor, and a crazy plan for Yossarian to survive. (And in this edition, Heller’s 1994 preface confesses that he could never kill Yossarian.)

How odd that the novel of honest hopelessness cannot give up on hope. Paradox-22, anyone? The persistence of hope even when people don’t know why: people will always need the hope-filled news of Jesus’ victory over sin and death.

View all my reviews


 

Optimism prime

Here’s a beautiful letter written by Mark Twain to American poet Walt Whitman, on the occasion of Whitman’s seventieth birthday. It was in 1889.

After some intense calculations, I figured out that 1889 was at the end of the nineteenth century. A time, so I have heard, of great optimism about the future that humans will inaugurate, with the aid of science and technology.

It’s one thing to hear this, another again to see primary evidence. Twain’s letter is very clear evidence.

Twain lists many advances seen in Whitman’s 70 year span of life: “… the electric light, the sewing machine, & the amazing, infinitely varied & innumerable products of coal tar …”

But even better, says Twain, will be what happens in the next 30 years.

Wait thirty years, & then look out over the earth! You shall see marvels upon marvels added to these whose nativity you have witnessed; & conspicuous above them you shall see their formidable Result — Man at almost his full stature at last! — & still growing, visibly growing while you look.

It’s messianic in tone.

Wait till you see that great figure appear, … him [ie, humanity] for whom the earth was made

Just 30 years to go until the inherent goodness of humanity will be proven as more enduring than any wrongness!

These 30 years, of course, take us to 1919. The brutal folly and horror of World War I is barely over. The coming settlement will firmly establish the pre-conditions to replace peace with World War II.

Human optimism is always exciting at the planning stage. Always depressing in hindsight.

For God alone my soul waits in silence, from him comes my salvation …
For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him
(Psalm 62:1, 5)

(I apologise for the terrible pun that forms the title of this post.)