Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power. Eph 1:15-19
Sometimes, preparing for a sermon feels like detective work for a modern-day Sherlock Holmes. A verse doesn’t seem to tell me anything at face value. When we investigate who did this, we just get small clues—one clue here and there. Then we keep digging at the verse with the L.A.C. principle (literary style, meaning, context, relation to other truths in the Bible). Suddenly, a whole crime case story bursts before our eyes. That’s how Ephesians is becoming; at the beginning, I never thought there would be so much depth. Every word has a deep and broad meaning.
After praising God, Paul is praying that the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God may enlighten the eyes of the Ephesians so that they might experimentally, with inward perception, know three definite things. He wants them to know it in a way that they can feel it in their hearts, that they can touch it with the hands of faith as real things. As a mature and wise saint of God, Paul knew that believers can lose their first love. They may know great doctrines, but they may lose the experience of them. He knew the Ephesians, and we, while facing the trials and troubles of this life, may get discouraged and disappointed. It may seem as though nothing is happening in our lives and we are going nowhere. The Christian life can become an indifferent routine. We might lukewarmly pray, come to church, go home, and live a regular life. Some of you may be like that today.
What do you need? We may think of 101 things, but Paul identifies three things that will take care of all our needs. So we are prayerfully trying to grasp the first one: the hope of calling.
We focused last time on the word calling. We saw the author of the calling, the Father of glory; an immutable, almighty, eternal, faithful God. His calling will have all his attributes. And its origin? Romans 8 says, “whom he predestined, he called.” It started in eternal election and predestination. Then, the nature of the calling—this is not a general call to everyone, but an efficacious call. The Father of glory, the God of heaven, with personal involvement through the Spirit, breaks innumerable impossible hindrances and chains to bring us out from darkness to light, from death to life, and from condemnation to justification. The means of calling? He does that through the gospel. Imagine the glory of this call when you are discouraged. “Hey, do you know I am called? Do you know who called? The Father of glory personally called me. When did He decide to call? In past eternity. How did He call? Not “come or go to hell,” but He commanded “come,” an irresistible call. I am a called one!”
Today, our focus will be on the word hope. The Spirit of wisdom and revelation has to reveal the hope of our calling. We will cover four headings: The meaning of hope, the objects of hope, the basis of hope, and the practical effects of this hope. You know, “MOBE” is short for mobile phone.
Meaning of Hope
Hope is a very important word in the New Testament. If we are to grow in grace, we have to grow in faith, love, and hope—a trilogy of grace. These three are essential to living a full Christian experience. If you lose any one, you will have an imbalanced Christian life. That is why you find these three linked together often in the pages of the New Testament (1 Peter 1:21-22, Ephesians 4:2-5, 1 Thessalonians 1 and 3). These three are woven together.
This hope is created by the effectual call. I used the example of being called to a grand marriage feast. The way someone calls us to a feast—if there is a grand card, dresses for all family members, with plates full of fruits and sweets—that kind of calling creates a hope in us. “Oh, if the calling invitation itself is so grand, how will the feast be? We can expect a grand welcome and a feast ready for us.” In the same way, in the effectual call, God, who called by forgiving us, justifying us, adopting us, and giving us a foretaste of the feast, creates a hope in us.
See, Paul is not praying that we should get a new hope. By the call, God has already placed a hope in us, but we can have it, and it may not deeply and impactfully penetrate our hearts. Although this is hope for our future, we can lose the sense that anything happening now is affected by the future, or that the future will affect us now. And this happens to many of us. We are all waiting for the coming of the Lord, but we can get to a state where it doesn’t really turn us on very much. We know it as a doctrine, but it isn’t very exciting.
Paul’s great burden is that we should know the hope, not just know it from a distance, but draw close to it. We should see the glory of that hope like a grand, beautiful, colorful diamond, turn and see its different sides, touch it, and feel it. This is so that whatever you are going through now, this hope should fill your heart with thrill, joy, and peace beyond your circumstances. He wants to awaken hope in our hearts in such a way that it thrills our present life.
What is the meaning of this biblical hope? It’s a confident expectation with fervent yearning and patient waiting for the full redemptive feast. Hope is a confident expectation for the full redemptive feast, and it always has, on one side, fervent yearning, and on the other hand, patient waiting. The central concept is confident expectation. That is the body of hope, but it has two hands: yearning and patient waiting. Three words.
I have to show that these three words are the biblical meaning of hope. Let’s look at 2 Corinthians 5:1. “For we know”—here’s a statement of certainty—”that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” Verse 2: “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring/longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven.” You see, struggling with this body of sin, and having a hope, he is not just longing to die, but he is longing for the day of the resurrection when the body of clay will be clothed with an immortal body. See how he expresses his hope. He expresses fervent yearning in verse 2: “For verily in this we groan.” Have you ever heard anyone so consumed with desire that their desire became groanings? “Earnestly desiring, longing.” So you see fervent yearning. What about confident expectation? Verse 6: “So we are always confident.”
Another verse: Philippians 1:6: “being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” He who began a good work in you, how did he begin that? By calling you. And in calling you, he’s given you a hope that he will complete it, giving you the full blessings of salvation. The same chapter, verse 20: “according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.”
So we see hope is confident expectation with fervent yearning. Then the last word: patience. Our Sherlock Holmes continues his investigation to Romans 8. Verse 24: “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?” Verse 25: “But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” On one side, we have yearning, on the other side, we are so confident that these blessings will be ours that we can patiently wait. We know no matter how many years it takes, God who called us and promised is an infallible, faithful God who never lies. So you see the words I used for my definition are all biblical. What is hope? Confident expectation with fervent yearning and patient waiting for the full redemptive feast.
Objects of This Hope
This confident expectation with fervent yearning and patient waiting, for what? What is the feast we are waiting for? We can categorize it into three areas: my hope for myself (my body and soul), the church, and the world. Personal hope, ecclesiastical hope, and universal hope.
First: What is my hope about myself? It is all the blessings that await my soul and body. My hope is that when I die, I will be immediately perfected in holiness as it says in Hebrews 11, “the spirits of just men made perfect,” and I will immediately go to glory, to see my Lord face to face, and my body will rest in the grave until the resurrection. It is this hope—confident expectation—that removes the fear of death for the believer, and we can say my last day is my best day. Death is a gain. It doesn’t stop there, because as a human being I was not made to be a just disembodied spirit. I was made to be a body-spirit entity serving and glorifying God. My hope is that this same body, when buried in the grave, is sown as a weak seed to rise as a mighty tree by the mighty power of God, and will one day rise exactly like the glorious body of Jesus Christ and be united to my sinless soul. Then I will be welcomed and acquitted in judgment. I will enjoy eternal bliss in heaven in God’s presence. That is personal hope.
Secondly: Christian hope has a broader perspective. Hope goes beyond our own individual needs and glory, to the glorification of the church. The whole body redeemed—all the elect people of God in the church—will be glorified without spot or wrinkle and presented to the Lord Jesus as a glorious bride to be glorified with him. The church will be lifted to such glory; the riches of the glory of God’s grace will be praised by the whole universe through the glorification of the church. Revelation 21 talks about the glory of the New Jerusalem in amazing symbolic language. The church will reach the highest glory, and I will be part of that church. Our hope is that the church, which is imperfect now, is the church militant, and shall become the church triumphant and the church perfect. That is the hope that drives us to live church life.
Thirdly: Our hope goes beyond our own individual needs and beyond the needs of the church and it actually touches the whole universe. As Revelation points out, there will be the ultimate triumph of Jesus Christ over all the forces of evil and they will be destroyed, and as we saw last time in 2 Peter, our Lord will burn this universe and transform it into a new heaven and new earth. Romans 8 says the whole creation groans and waits for that. This sinful world itself will one day reflect the original intention of God. So our hope is not only in the perfection of myself, but the perfection of the church and the perfection of the world. All this will lead to the eternal bliss of heaven; we will see that in the next item, “the glorious inheritance of the saints.”
This hope is not just a faint possibility. It isn’t an uncertain dream lying in the distant future. It is an absolutely guaranteed certainty, toward which we are now moving, that we will one day live in a whole new creation. Biblical hope confidently expects with fervent yearning and patient waiting for all this future glory. So, we’ve covered the meaning and objects of our hope. Next.
Basis of This Hope
On what basis do we believe all this will happen to us personally, as a church, and to the world? The only basis of our hope is 1 Timothy 1:1: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the commandment of God our Savior and the Lord Jesus Christ, our hope.” The basis, the sum, the substance, the author, the beginning, and the end of my hope is the Lord Jesus Christ.
All of those yearnings, all of those expectations, all of that waiting for a complete salvation, all of it is drawn from, rests upon, and focuses in the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Because when we were in a hopeless, fallen, unredeemable state, He was the one who agreed to take up this great work of redemption and to do all that was necessary that we might have such hope. He is the only one who could do it as a mediator. He came, accomplished redemption, finished his earthly ministry, and is doing his heavenly ministry now. Why do we believe that we shall be saved to the uttermost? Oh, sometimes we sin and fall so terribly that we wonder whether we will reach the shore of heaven. What is our only hope that we will persevere and experience the full feast in heaven? Because He “ever liveth to make intercession for us.”
In this life, He will give us sufficient grace, strengthen us, and supply all our needs. When we sin, He will be a sympathetic High Priest, show mercy for our weakness, and give us helping grace. He will never leave us nor forsake us, and He will make all things work together for our good, and even our afflictions, however severe and long continued, will work out for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
When we die, his ongoing ministry will continue to save us to the uttermost, so our spirits become perfect and our souls immediately pass to glory, and our bodies sleep in Christ with the hope of resurrection. He will come one day and raise me with a glorified body, and unite that sinless soul, putting on immortality. When He appears, we shall be like Him. He will acquit me in judgment, and then He will present the church to Himself as a bride adorned for her husband, a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, and He will change this universe into a new heaven and earth. The only basis of this hope is the past, present, and future work of the Lord Jesus Christ. No wonder He’s called the hope. Colossians 1:27: “Christ in you, the hope of glory.”
So we see the meaning, objects, and basis of this hope. Finally, the practical effects of such a hope.
Practical Effects of This Hope
If the spirit of revelation and wisdom enlightens our eyes, and we know the hope of calling, what effects will it bring in our life? Three areas of our life will be affected: personal life, church life, and life in the world. First, the effects will be inward and personal, then outwardly in the church and the world.
First, let’s consider the inward personal effects this hope will create. We will look at only three.
Firstly: Hope will fill a Christian heart with true and constant joy. Galatians 5:22 states the fruit of the spirit is love, the dominant grace, and right next to it, joy. How does the Holy Spirit produce joy in the heart of a Christian? Is joy just poured into the Christian heart out of the air without any means? No, no. The Holy Spirit produces that joy by making the truths of hope real to him. When a Christian’s spiritual eyes are enlightened to know the hope of his calling, his heart is filled with joy. See, Paul wants us to be joyful, and knowing what will make us joyful, he prays that we may know what is the hope of his calling, so we can have an increased measure of true and constant joy.
Let’s see a verse that tells us this. Romans 5:1: “Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand… and rejoice… on what basis does this rejoicing come… in hope of the glory of God.” Realizing the truth of justification brings peace to our hearts, but he said we have joy within our hearts. And what’s the basis of that joy? It’s inseparably linked to our hope, our confident expectation that we shall one day share the very glory of God in the presence of God. Clearly, the basis of the Apostle’s joy is his knowledge of hope.
What does this joy of hope do in our life? Therefore, he goes on to say, verse 3: “And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint.” The same Romans 12:12, giving a list of short directions, he says, “rejoicing in hope.” In other words, he says your joy will be found in the context of hope. The more you know what your hope is, the greater your joy will be. The more dim your hope is, the less true and constant joy you will know. You will allow the billows of life to discourage you and drag you down.
Even our Lord said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, verses 10 to 12: “Blessed, perfectly happy, completely fulfilled are they that have been persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.” “Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, wow! Why? For great is your reward in heaven.” You see what he’s saying? As is your confident expectation in the realm of hope, so will be your joy in the face of very adverse circumstances. Even when our faith brings violent opposition, resulting in the absolute stripping away of all personal comforts of reputation and name, Jesus said, and in the parallel passage in Luke, he says “leap for joy.” Become a jumper. So the basis then of a solid and constant joy in the heart of the believer is the knowledge of his hope.
Let me speak to the conscience of every Christian here this morning. Is your life characterized by true and constant joy? This fruit of the Spirit should be increasing and blossoming in your life with all the other graces; that is how you can know you are growing. If you can’t answer yes, can you see it is because you are not studying and meditating upon your hope? You will never be happy if you just chase happiness directly. You have to know what means bring joy into your life and pursue that. God, through Paul, teaches that the more you know your hope, whatever happens in life, you can know true and constant joy.
A Christian loses his joy when his whole spiritual vision narrows down upon his present circumstances until he becomes captive to them. “Woe is me, I have so many troubles; everybody is cheating me, saying all kinds of wrong things.” Jesus said in that very situation, “leap for joy.” Why? He says your reward is great, not here, but there. Could it be that one of the reasons why your joy is so fluctuating, and at times your joy is not the true joy of the Spirit, is that it’s a mere creature’s delight in creature comforts? You have enough good health, bills were paid, your wife, your husband was sweet, the kids are behaving properly; the job was going good, you were feeling well; you are happy and you thought for a long time that was joy in the Holy Spirit? You think you are bearing the fruit of the spirit. No, it was joy produced by creature comforts, in creature delight. God sometimes in his providence blasts those comforts, to teach you true joy in the Holy Spirit and make you bear the true fruit of the spirit. Then we learn how to be joyful even in the midst of adverse times, when terrible things go on. So the first effect of hope in a Christian is this fruit of the Spirit, an inward, true, and constant joy, irrespective of our circumstances.
Secondly: The second effect of the knowledge of our hope is unshakable stability of soul; we can bear anything without discouragement and persevere. Why do you think you get so easily discouraged? A small trouble, a small problem, and your ship is like tossed to and fro, so easy to be discouraged. Can I say the main reason for that is because you don’t know the hope of your calling?
See, we may say, “Okay pastor, ‘Well,’ all this future hope of calling ‘that’s fine. I understand we have a glorious future. But how does that help me now? Now, I’m caught up in a meaningless routine, I’m bored. I get up, get ready, go to work, come back, some videos, ladies same every morning same old dosa, idli, sambar, get kids ready for school, same thing, repeat, repeat… same life for 20, 30 years, I am bored… Day by day goes by, and life is not very exciting. For some of us, life is filled with trials. How does that distant hope help me now?'” The glorious answer of the scripture is that our hope is not something that is all in the future, all attained in one flash when Jesus comes. The process of this hope is something that is working now. I think this is where the Holy Spirit should open our eyes to see the glory of the hope of calling now.
What the Scriptures actually teach about this hope had never dawned upon us. And that is this is not going to happen all at one moment when Jesus Christ comes again, but it is something which is happening right now. It is true that the body is ultimately redeemed at that future time, but now the process of that coming new creation is taking place right now in us.
Read the way Paul describes it in these most helpful words in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “Therefore we do not lose heart [we don’t get discouraged]. Even though our outward man is perishing…” Why Paul, why are you not discouraged, losing heart when the outward man is perishing? “…yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.” So when is this happening? Now. How?
Notice next: Verse 17: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” That is what is happening now! You have troubles. Do you know what light affliction Paul spoke about? Verse 8: “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.” He will expand on this in chapter 11: beaten with rods three times, thirty-nine lashes five times, shipwrecked three times and a night and a day had been adrift at sea, stoned once left for dead, all kinds of dangers; spent many a sleepless night, naked, shivering and many a day without food or drink. All this he catches up in one phrase: “this slight momentary affliction.” How do you not get discouraged and bear all this, Paul? And he says because I know now; all this is working for us, it is preparing us. It is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison.
See, Paul’s eyes were enlightened to see the hope of the glory because he was given the sense that God is at work in their daily circumstances now, and that this is happening now. In the midst of the old creation, the new one is gradually taking shape. You can’t see it visibly, so he says he believes in the unseen. Verse 18: “while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” One day you will look back and you can see all the results of it in your spirit and in your soul. These very trials and pressures and problems and afflictions are preparing us for that future glory.
That means every sleepless night, every headache, every job pressure, every day tiredness after long hours of work, every joblessness, money crisis, every sickness, every flat tire, traffic jam, your years of singleness (when God will give you the right partner), every delay or frustration you have, every family problem, every children problem, every fight in your marriage—everything that upsets you and tries to discourage you now, is all working for you an eternal weight of glory. It is preparing you for the coming glory. It is molding your spirit, renewing your soul; it is giving an opportunity to exercise faith and hope, to experience the unknown power of Christ available for you. In James’s language, “patience doing its perfect work so you may lack nothing.” Romans 5: “knowing this we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope.” One day you will realize how minute and amazing the true promise of God is that all things… all things are working together for your good.
That is what Paul is praying that these Christians will capture – they may know the hope of their calling. This calling is not something past and done; but it is continuously working in every minute detail of your life. They are not lost in a meaningless routine of events, drifting through with some degree of numbness day after day. No, it is all working together. There is no circumstance we go through which cannot, in the hands of God, be turned to our advantage. It is preparing them for an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. Learn to look at life that way! That is the hope of our calling. Then you will not be discouraged no matter what your circumstances are. When you begin to see that, then every moment, every event, is tinged with the flame of glory, with the touch of heaven upon it.
So this hope brings not only constant joy and unshakable stability, but also growing holiness in life. We know the verse 1 John 3:1. “Behold (stand back and look, gaze upon with amazement) what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.” Verse 2: “Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” So there’s not only the confidence of our present condition—a child of God—but here is Christian hope: confident expectation of the promised blessing of complete conformity to Christ.
Now what’s the inevitable effect of that confidence, that hope? Verse 3: “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” This is the inevitable result of the confidence of Christian hope. Everyone that has this hope, this certain knowledge of present sonship, coupled with this certain confidence of future glorification, purifies himself. He is diligently engaged in the work of progressive sanctification. We studied this so much, today evening; this hope will give great power to kill besetting sin and live purely. You are struggling in sin, temptations, groaning within you, often failing. Do you realize what you need? You need the Holy Spirit to enlighten your eyes to know the hope of calling.
So those are the inward personal effects of this hope. Now, very briefly, let’s look at the effects of this hope outwardly on the church and the world.
If we are personally experiencing the effects of this hope of constant joy, unshakable stability, and growing holiness, we will be members who are committed, participating, encouraging, and striving humbly and sacrificially for the unity of the church.
Why was the first-century church like Acts 2:42: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers”? Because they had this hope. Hebrews 10:24-25: “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” What will make us stir one another to love and good works and encourage one another? Notice the hope: “and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”
The more we know the hope of calling, that the Day is coming, and the Holy Spirit is enlightening us, how do we identify such people in our church for whom the Holy Spirit is enlightening their eyes to know their hope of calling? They will be committed to the church, attending all meetings, not making it a habit to miss church. Then, they will not make it a habit to regularly come late to church. Do you see the effect of that hope on their relationship to the church as commitment? See, the first step in serving the church is coming to all meetings on time, and only then will God use us for the next service.
Christians with this hope will be participating and encouraging in church ministry. Because they hope Christ is coming back to perfect and glorify this church, and He died for this church. He will lift this church to such glory that the whole universe for eternity will praise God’s riches of His grace and wisdom. Nothing is more important than the church for them. They will be very serious in their church duties. The New Testament is filled with duties to one another: love one another, serve one another, forgive, teach and admonish one another, bear one another’s burdens. How many take it seriously? We hear regular complaints: “oh nobody talks to me, respects me, cares for me, encourages me.” This is because some of us still fail in these duties.
2 Thessalonians talks about the second coming of our blessed hope. He tells us we should not grieve like others who do not have hope when someone dear to us dies. Paul teaches us what will happen when Christ comes: we will rise from the dead. He says when we have this hope, we will comfort one another with this hope. Not just be comforted personally, no, we have to use our hope to comfort one another. Not only for death, but do we encourage and comfort believers going through trials and troubles? We should not just give vague, good-feeling words like, “oh don’t worry everything will be alright, you will live 1,000 years, all problems will be solved in this world.” We have to use God’s words and promises of hope and comfort them with hope. We should be weeping with those who weep and rejoicing with those who rejoice.
The church is not merely a preaching station; it is a living organism, the family of God, members of Christ’s body. Every organ, every member has a part. You don’t have to wait to officially be assigned some role. Whatever gifts you think you have, whatever needs you see, you have to fulfill them. That is how most of you are doing. I didn’t tell you to do it, you saw the need and you are fulfilling it, and Christ sees whether you are doing it.
A great need of our church is an encouragement ministry; we need this very week. That is why we come to church. Sometimes, you can encourage someone in one minute, which my one-hour sermon cannot do. We all may speak a lot and hear so many truths. I may speak so much, but when trials come, I get so swallowed up by the present trial, my hope becomes dim to me, and I become discouraged. And it’s at that precise point that I need my brother or my sister to put a hand on my shoulder and say, “Brother, you’re not to be as those who have no hope. Remember how God called you, what hope we have. Remember that verse, this verse. Do not worry, we are praying for you.” I need your encouragement and feedback. “Pastor, thank you for your efforts in this message. You said this, can you explain that more?” How much it encourages my heart! Not once a year; I need it weekly, and we all need weekly encouragements. Oh, we fail so much in this duty. Do you see it is because we do not know the hope of our calling? If God can enlighten the eyes of our hearts to see the hope of our calling, what a committed, participating, and encouraging church community we will be. We will be full of encouragement. The reason we are not is because each of us is swallowed up in our own temporary trials. We come to church as if it were a funeral home, with downcast faces.
Then, this hope, as a church, will make all of us strive for the unity of the church. Ephesians 4, verse 4, says, “I, therefore…” What did you have? You have been called into such tremendous gospel privileges. Think of them as we went through them in the first paragraph of Ephesians 1. In light of all the truth of the first three chapters, I want your walk in the church to be in accordance with the blessings God has given you if you have any gratitude. I beseech and beg you to walk worthy of the Lord with what dominant graces? Lowliness, meekness, and long-suffering. All of those graces come to light in interpersonal relationships. Lowliness is the absence of strut and cockiness and self-assertiveness. “I am not respected,” “I am ignored,” these are all so important. No. Meekness is the absence of ill-will. Long-suffering is the absence of a short fuse on your temper’s trigger, but bearing with one another. You see, the graces he is zeroing in on have to do with the relationship of one believer to another. He says, “Walk worthy of God, and in particular I mean, cultivate the graces which contribute to true unity.”
Verse 3 says, “giving diligence to keep,” not to get, not to attain, but to keep “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” God has constituted a unity amongst the people of God, in spite of all the diversity of our backgrounds, our temperaments, our ethnic and sociological influences. Now Paul says, you give diligence to keep that unity by cultivating these graces which will foster that unity. Don’t spoil that unity with your pride, arrogance, or selfishness. When in pride you do that, you quench the Spirit’s work. So those are the outward effects of hope in a church.
Lastly, what about the effects of this hope outwardly in the world? Two things: First, hope will protect our minds from all evil influences and discouragements from the world. Secondly, hope in us will open up regular gospel opportunities for us.
Firstly, hope will protect our minds from all evil influences and discouragements from the world. Our Lord said in the world you will have tribulation, stumblings from the world and the devil. There will be attacks, discouragements, and battles in the world. Do you know what will protect a Christian from a breakdown? First Thessalonians 5:8 talks about the “helmet, the hope of salvation.” In this battle, the sons of darkness are continually seeking to attack us, cripple and wound and discourage us, and spoil our minds with demonic arguments. How do we protect ourselves? One strategic piece of that armor is our helmet. It is the hope of salvation.
The world would say, “You’re a Christian, a believer? Look at the troubles you’ve gone through. I’m no Christian. My bills are paid. My family and I are so healthy and happy. Look what you’ve gone through.” Paul says, “You know how I handle that? My light affliction works for me a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory while I look not on the things that are seen but on the things that are not seen.” It’s the hope, the confident expectation. Every trial here is building up an eternal weight of glory there. I don’t have time to go into the many such ways hope is the helmet that will protect us from worldly attacks and discouragements.
Could it be, child of God, that you’re being rendered vulnerable because you’re not feeding on your hope? Go to the armory today. Feed your mind upon the fact and the circumstances of His return, and the glory that awaits you then, without even knowing it. As your mind feeds upon those things, God will be forging a helmet for your head. And you’ll go back into that same circumstance tomorrow and next week, and by His grace be enabled to stand.
Secondly, this hope will open all kinds of gospel opportunities for you. We all give the excuse that there are no opportunities. See what Peter says to suffering Christians, to live as a witness to Christ, then what happens? First Peter 3:15: “But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.”
When you live in hope, the world cannot help but notice; you will be observed by the world. Sometimes the world is our own household, family, relatives, office, neighbors, or students. This hope has a practical effect on the world in that it will provoke an inquiry from the unconverted world.
In the midst of all your trials, they see you saying, “but blessed be God; praise the Lord.” They scratch their heads. They would have jumped up and down. Your hope will be a mystery, and the world will always want to know the reason for it. “How can you put up with so many things? What is your hope?”
Then it opens a beautiful gospel opportunity for us. Peter says be prepared to say the right things to him. Who is God, who is man, who is Jesus Christ, what is in it for him, what should he do? When you understood all that, you have a hope that makes you live like this.
The clear implication is that the hope in a Christian will make the world want to know the reason. You must be ready to tell them. People give ten steps to being a good witness. I tell only one step: live with hope. You will have daily opportunities to share the gospel.
Let me ask you, how long has it been since anybody asked you what makes you tick? Has anybody ever asked you? At least indirectly? Is your life in any measure a head-scratching life that makes people go, “What makes him tick?” Well, if the hope is burning within your breast, Peter says, sooner or later, someone’s going to ask for a reason. What a practical thing Christian hope is when it forces the ungodly to start asking questions about the last thing in the world he wants to talk about: religion. Because the mark of the ungodly is he has no hope, you see. He sees us face death and we’re not shattered by it. He can’t understand that.
Oh, may God make the hope so real to us. So I conclude my message on hope with what was beautifully expressed by the apostle in Romans 15 in verse 13: “Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing that he may abound in hope in the power of the Holy Spirit.”
But I do have a closing word to you who do not have this hope. The simple reason you have no hope is because you have not obeyed the gospel command to repent, turn from your way of life to God, and believe in Jesus Christ. If you don’t obey that, scripture says, Jesus Christ shall come in flaming fire to take vengeance on all those that do not obey the gospel. The saddest thing that can be said about you is that you have no hope. That is the cause for all your fears and miseries in life. The greatest thing you need to live this life is hope. You may have some ideas about life, death, and eternity, but they are all human opinions. But oh, my friend, may God grant you to see that in Jesus Christ there is true and substantial hope. When you repent and believe in Jesus Christ, he will implant within your breast this Christian hope. That hope produces marvelous, life-changing effects in our life and in your world.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 