The Hope we hope for

Hi. Again, let me welcome you to OnMission - we are so thankful that you are with us, following this blog and joining with us as we seek to truly know God.

My name is Howard Edwards; an OnMission pastor, and, at least initially I will be the main contributor to this blog. As we begin, let me again invite anyone who might like to help research or contribute directly to this blog to feel free to contact me by email.

As we turn to God’s Word, let us pray:

Almighty God, our Father in Heaven: Give us eyes that see, we want to know You. Give us ears that hear, we need to hear Your Word. Give us hearts that Love, transform us so we might Love as You Love. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer. Amen

Scripture:

The Bible texts we are reflecting on are from a letter thought to be written by God through Jesus’ youngest apostle. John often spoke of God’s Love and the hope we find when we are devoted to Him. That hope is what we are considering today. Here are two passages from this letter.

"This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (concerning the Word of life— and the life was revealed, and we have seen and testify and announce to you the eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us). What we have seen and heard we announce to you too, so that you may have fellowship with us (and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ)..

We have come to know Love by this: that Jesus laid down His life for us; thus we ought to lay down our lives for our fellow Christians. But whoever has the world’s possessions and sees his fellow Christian in need and shuts off his compassion against him, how can the Love of God reside in such a person? Little children, let us not Love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth, and by this we will know that we are of the truth and will convince our conscience in His presence." (1 John 1:1-3)

As we enter Advent 2021 together, OnMission is talking about how knowing God impacts the Way we live. God has given us the Bible (His Word), and one of the purposes of the Bible is to introduce us to God. In the Bible the cause of suffering and conflict are explained and God tells us how it will all end. He calls His people out of a worldview grounded in human desires and into a life-view that aligns us with His desires - with His perfect, Loving will. We see God who is Love acting in Love to Love His people and to gather them to Himself.

So when we follow Jesus how we live and experience life will be different from how we lived before we knew Him. As we live in Christ, we surrender completely to Him and we turn from our broken sin ravaged natural, worldly inclinations. When we truly know God and accept His Love our priorities, our desires and our choices will come into line with God’s will for His people and that alignment will be evident in our life.

And this is important for us to understand and accept. God’s Way is not our way - following Jesus does not mean He will give us all the things we wanted and desired before we knew Him. Jesus is not some sort of cosmic delivery service standing by to satisfy every personal desire and fulfill every economic ambition. That’s simply not the way it is - it is NOT His Way.

In the portion of the letter that we read, we heard that because Christian hope is focused precisely on Jesus, that hope will purify and reforms us - it changes the Way we live.

Note this, the writer of the letter first states clearly the wonderful promise of the Gospel - that Christ followers will live eternally with Jesus - but then he immediately says that the moment someone has this hope and knows it’s certainty they will change - a refining and restoration begins because they have come to know who Jesus is. Jesus changes how His followers understand the world around them and so how they live in that world also changes. This is one of the big ideas that this letter writer wants us to understand - it's one of the big ideas in the Bible - following Jesus will change our mindset and so will change how we live.

Let me take just a moment to clarify this word “hope”.

Most of us will understand hope as something linked to an uncertainty and to a desire. We commonly say things like “I hope I get that” or  “I hope this will happen.” Hoping is usually considered to be like wishing for something - it might or might not happen. Well that is precisely not what we are talking about when we talk about the Christian hope in Jesus. The hope we read about today carries no risk or uncertainty.

When we know Jesus and are absolutely confident that He is who He says He is, what we desire shifts. Our hope is not for treasures or pleasures here and now - our hope is not for some benefit from Jesus - our hope is not for some gift He might bestow on us - our hope is for Him. We Love Jesus because of who He is - not for what we can get from Him. We seek Him and we worship Him. He is God. Our hope rests on Him. All the other good things we hear about in the Bible are incidental, mere byproducts of knowing and Loving Jesus. But because Jesus is God, He is sovereign and is perfectly able to bring about that righteous Loving world He spoke about - He is perfectly capable of establishing the Kingdom of Heaven - this is more than a promise, it is a certainty. It is what He desires for those who Love Him and put their trust in Him, so it will happen.

When John, the writer of the letter we read speaks of hope this is what he is talking about. He says having this hope in Christ indicates we have already crossed the threshold of life in Christ. Having this hope, this certainty that Jesus is God reveals that you are His - that you have received Him. John tells us this hope reveals we are being restored bit by bit, and purified heartbeat by heartbeat into the beautiful creation that God has desired for us from the beginning - a creation He called “very good.”

So here we come to the very precipice of the chasm between faith and doubt - between complete trust in God and mistrust - between hope in Christ and mere fanciful dreams.

A person who lives in Christian hope - this certainty - who knows God - who feels His Love and who Loves Him will exist and move and live in this world differently. A changed person will live a changed life.

How we think, what we want and the choices we make are shaped by the social, cultural and economic norms that we are immersed in. When we follow Jesus we become immersed in a culture centred on Him and our lives cannot help but be impacted by Him. Because our hope is placed in Him, we will live radically different from people who hope for personal, material, physical and financial benefits. Many people will call you silly for this and judge you unfairly. But if Jesus is who He says He is, and if we are His followers then our lives cannot help but be impacted by Him. When we know Him, it is impossible not to be changed by Him. Something shifts - and that shift marks the beginning of life in Christ.

In the Bible we read about Jesus’ apostle Paul. Before his conversion Paul lived in relative ease and comfort - he had his health, a good education, a promising career and financial security. But when his eyes were opened - when he truly saw Jesus - when he realized who Jesus is, his hope shifted from the things of this material world to that hope found only in Jesus ... and everything changed for him.

Paul became a missionary and a preacher. His response to Jesus was to do what Jesus asked each of His people to do - to tell everyone about Him - to reveal His Love for the world. But just as people hated Jesus and His countercultural Truth, they hated Paul. He suffered and was persecuted and would eventually be killed.

Now most of the non-Christian and secular world would judge such a life a hopeless failure - a complete loss. Yet Paul declared his persecution and suffering to be hope filled - he counted everything we might call a loss a gain. Paul writes, “For [Jesus]  I have suffered the loss of all things yet I count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.” His hope rested upon Jesus and that changed Paul’s life.  It changed how he thought. It changed what was important to him. It changed what he did and why.

What he desired and the choices he made no longer centered on himself - his self-gratification and his self-service and his self-glorification. Paul's hope became fixed above and beyond the mundane treasures and pleasures of this world - and everything he did and said was shaped by his hope, this certainty found in Jesus. That is the Hope we hope for.

The impact of this Hope is to restore and purify until the Hope filled person comes to resemble Jesus Himself and so goes into the world to live as Jesus lives. This Hope comes from knowing Jesus, and this Hope changes who we are and so changes how we live.

So, as we contemplate our Hope in Jesus and as we close this time of reflection, let us pray a blessing written by that man Paul - it is a prayer for the kind of Hope he found only in knowing Jesus as His Lord and Saviour.

“I pray that God, the source of our hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Amen.