(Delmont Record – 10/18/16)

Hope

Before you read the rest of this article, I’d like you to take a couple moments and think about what your hopes are in life. Now if you had to name just one hope for your life, what would it be?

I often find it interesting to learn how the definition of words can slowly change over time, and how that change often reflects a change in the culture in which it’s found. “Hope” is one of those words. I’m sure we all would say that we understand the definition of hope, after all, we most likely use this word all the time. “I hope you have a nice day.”  “I hope everything turns out well for you.” We even use the word when we know there is little change of the thing hoped for actually happening.  Most years I’ve probably said, “I hope the Minnesota Vikings win the Super Bowl,” even though most of the time that is pretty unrealistic – maybe this year??

Often we use the word hope to reflect simply what we would want to happen, even if we know that our hope is little more than wishful thinking.  And even our current dictionaries reflect that. Dictonary.com defines hope as, “the feeling that what is wanted can be had or that events will turn out for the best.”  However, the definition of hope, even just 20 years ago, used to be quite different.  The Webster Dictionary in 1995 defined hope as, “trust, reliance” and “desire accompanied by expectation of fulfillment.” At first glance this change seems minor, but it really reflects a change in our society. For the most part, many people live their lives without true hope, and all they are left with is wishful thinking. But God doesn’t want us to live this way, He wants us to live with hope – certain hope.  Psalm 42:5, Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God. Because we live in an uncertain world, without God, we are left hopeless.

The hope that is spoken of in the Bible is not wishful thinking. It is that old-school version of hope – that the promises of God given to us in His Word are something we can trust and rely on coming to pass. Now those things you listed above, do they also fit this more certain definition of hope? Are they things you can count on happening no matter the circumstances? The Bible not only reassures us that we are right to put our hope in God, but it also reassures us that hope is a certain one – that hope placed in the Lord will never fail.  Psalm 130:7 states, Put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with him is full redemption.

This is a hope that goes beyond the circumstances of our life; this is a hope that can endure even our own failures. For this hope is centered in the Lord’s work of redemption. His promise that He has and will continue to redeem us. The hope that He will redeem us from the grave – that those who die in Christ will be raised to life again. So this is a hope that can survive cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and anything else that the world might throw at us. The promise that He will redeem us from sin – that through the power of the Holy Spirit we might live a new life. The promise that He will redeem us from the power of the Devil – that as it says in Romans 8:39 that no trouble, hardship, or persecution that comes upon us in this world will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

The biggest difference between the wishful thinking hope the world offers us, and the certain hope of the Christian is that our hope is not in a something, but in a Someone. Our hope is in the person of Christ – in His death, resurrection, and ascension to the throne of Heaven.  Colossians 1:27 says that “Christ in us” is the “hope of glory.” And as the Apostle Paul wrote in Titus 2:11-14, ¹¹ For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. ¹² It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, ¹³ while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, ¹⁴ who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

So what is your hope in today? What is the one thing that you can trust no matter what comes your way in life? Do you have a hope that can survive a drought or a flood? Do you have a hope that can survive a stock market crash or a lean harvest? Do you have a hope that can survive a life-changing accident, or even a terminal cancer diagnosis? Do you have a certain hope? If not, you can be assured that God wants you to have that hope, and He offers that hope to you through His Son, Jesus Christ. And the message of that hope is found in His Word, the Bible. For everything was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.  – Romans 15:4