Today’s Musing is inspired (and sometimes directly quoted) by a sermon given by Joshua Harris entitled “A Past, A Present, and a Future Hope) preached at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Maryland on 4/11/10.
Last week I wrote about hope in the midst of pain. Hope is a powerful thing. It is what gets us out of bed in the morning and a reason to push through difficult circumstances. When someone lacks hope, that’s when they don’t get out of bed or even want to continue living.
But the question is—what do you hope for (or in)? We tend to use “hope” in a much simpler form than the Bible does. We hope it won’t rain on our picnic, we hope we can fit into our dress or jeans for a class reunion, or we hope we don’t make a fool of ourselves in front of others.
We also place our hope in things that won’t last forever or are fleeting—relationships, education, careers and our stuff. None of these are bad in and of themselves but all will one day come to an end.
The Bible refers to a different kind of hope—one that will endure—a living hope.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” 1 Peter 1:3-5 NIV
This living hope is a certain confidence that God will fulfill His purposes. This hope is not a shaky, fickle kind of hope. It is alive—growing and thriving. It is also tied to our faith.
“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1 NIV
So, how can you have this living hope? The answer is right there in Verse 3 of the 1 Peter passage. It all starts with God’s mercy and then by placing our faith in Jesus Christ—His sinless life which made Him an acceptable sacrifice to God, His death on the cross which paid the penalty for our sin, and His Resurrection which gives us eternal life. This is what gives us this living hope. Apart from God all other hope is a dying hope.
Because of Jesus’ sacrifice we have an inheritance that is “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading”—it just gets better and better every day.
Verses 4 and 5 go on to say that this inheritance is being “kept in heaven for you” by God’s power. How awesome is that? As hard as this life can be at times, as believers we have a place waiting for us, kept and guarded by God Himself!
Satan would love to destroy this hope by lying to us and convincing us that heaven is some boring place where you sing hymns, play the harp and float on clouds all day long for millions of years. We know that this is a lie because God created everything around us and even in its cursed condition there is so much beauty around us. Imagine how glorious heaven will be when there is no sin or corruption to cloud our view. There will be no more sickness or pain or suffering. But the best news is that we will be in the presence of Jesus—forever!
This hope should bring us joy in our present as we look toward an indescribably amazing future!
Have a great day!