What is HOPE?

A little while back, I had the privilege of preaching in a small church in Massachusetts. It was a small Baptist church, so obviously, I spoke on infant baptism.

Just Kidding! However, I did pick a passage that draws on our helplessness within baptism, but I’ll let others decide how that applies to the sacrament itself.

I’m encouraged by this sermon, because I enjoyed every step of the process, and am excited to do it again!

I spoke on “Hope,” and what the biblical definition of hope is…I slightly edited some parts, but below is most of my transcript (I type it out verbatim, because I have a tendency to get lost and ramble…and blush):

What is Hope?
1 Peter 3:13-22

…I wanted to ask, and hopefully answer, the question, “What is hope?” What does hope mean? Why is hope important? Where can I find hope, for myself?
And before I go too far, I want to stop, and assure you that I am no expert on hope. I chose this topic, because I need hope. And I know that it is so easy to focus on OUR successes and OUR failures that we can lose sight of anything beyond OURselves.

…So what is hope? I hope it doesn’t rain today. I hope I have enough money to last me until I get paid. I hope I didn’t offend you. I hope you’re doing well! But there is also a very real question that we sometimes ask ourselves…”I HOPE that this whole Christianity thing is real, I hope that its true, I hope I’m not just wasting my time.”
Well, the bible tells you that Jesus is real. But the bible also seems to tell you that hope isn’t a wish. “I hope this is true, because otherwise, I’m stuck.”
Let me interrupt myself and say, that it is OKAY to question our faith. Why do children question their parents? To LEARN. It is through the questions that we learn the answers…and God will not ABANDON us in our questioning. And that is something we can HOPE in…
Hope is so many things, but it is not wishful thinking.
I love baseball. Specifically, I’m a fan of the Chicago Cubs. The Cubs haven’t won a World Series in a hundred and ONE years! And if you pay any attention to baseball, you know they aren’t going to win this year. Not even close. So one part of me, the Cubs fan in me, wants to say, “I hope the Cubs win the World Series.” But another part of me, the Christian in me, must say “I cannot hope in something I don’t believe to be true.”
Hope is NOT wishful thinking. It’s not wishing truth where something is false. It’s also not wishing truth, where you have NO IDEA what is going to happen.
HOPE is a glimpse of the future. No one hopes in the past. Many hope in the present, the here and now, that there is nothing beyond us.
But Hope, biblical hope, is a hope for tomorrow, a hope for the future. That all that is wrong with the world will be made right; all that is sad, will be made happy. Even if there is only sadness in this life, there will be only happiness in the next.
That… is hope.

i. Hope is Good.
Hope is not this distraction, this BLINDFOLD, that we say we believe in, so that we don’t have to face the reality that we only have this life. And that when we die, we are DONE.
…Now, in a general sense, when Peter says in verse 15, to always be prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you, he is saying it is good to know your faith. Know why you believe. So then, you can answer the objections of the world. This is a good thing, and is talked about at great length elsewhere in the Bible. But, what Peter is specifically saying is something a little different.
At the beginning of this letter, we see that he is writing to Christians who are scattered across foreign lands. They are a minority, and in a strange place. And because of this fact, we can understand that there is a very good chance that they will be persecuted and punished for being different. This is why much of the letter focuses on respecting authority (citizens respect governing bodies; slaves their masters; wives their husbands). Because God has given them authority.
So be good and obey, and you’ll stay out of trouble. Verse 13, who will harm you if you are zealous (literally, imitators) for what is good? By nature, we are not good, but if we imitate the goodness and mercy of God, and obey the authority of those who were given their authority by God, we shouldn’t be made to suffer.
But, sadly, some are made to suffer cruelty at the hand of authorities, and all man suffers the consequences of sin in the world, so imitating good is not good enough. Being good, more specifically, LOOKING GOOD will not save you.
So we must HOPE in something that can save us; and a future where there is no suffering.
So, when Peter says to be prepared to make a defense, it seems he means to be prepared to explain your hope when people inevitably question it.
After all, it must look absurd. Even in the depths of woe, the pain of suffering… even on one’s deathbed, the Christian HOPES for heaven. We hope for a future without sin, for a world without death, for no more suffering and no more tears. We hope for heaven!
…Our hope IS good. In many cases, it is the only comfort we have, this side of heaven. And it can NOT fail!
Even in our suffering we have hope!
Verse 18, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit.”
Here’s our model. Christ suffered for us, the unrighteous. And Christ conquered death! And brought us TO God. For what is our suffering, if not temporary.
Don’t let the world, like the friends of Job, tell you that your suffering is for some specific wrong that you have done, and that only you can make it right. Even Christians get seduced by this idea. That you are punished because of karma, or some universal power balancing good and evil.
…Whether or Not our current suffering is because of some specific sin in the past is NOT our concern. It is our job to repent of ALL our sins. Not just the ones we THINK are the root of our suffering. Sin, with a capital S is the root of our suffering; (the condition of sin, the disease of sin) and not an individual sin, and not a single action, but that SIN that has penetrated the very world we live in. And strangely, the text tells us it is good for us to suffer, because we are being prepared for a life where our sin cannot ruin us!
Francis Schaeffer calls all of mankind a “glorious ruin,” created in the very image of God, we have fallen apart. Like a beautiful mansion left in disrepair…it is sometimes hard to see how majestic it once was. It is even harder to believe that it could one day return to its original state.
My wife and I live in an apartment in an old factory. Even though it is no longer a functioning factory, it has been renovated. But, just down the street is another factory that did not fare so well. Once the business left, the factory fell into ruins. That’s all it is, just ruins. All the windows are broken, graffiti is scribbled along the walls, parts of the building are falling apart, and other than the fact that it’s still standing, there is no evidence that it ever had a purpose.
How hard is it to even begin to think of this factory ever being useful again? Maybe someone will buy the land and knock it down, but this factory, in its squalor, is beyond repair. To ever see it renovated and alive would be miraculous!
If you ever watch Home Makeover shows, or What Not To Wear, you are familiar with the idea of taking something, for lack of a better word, ugly, and making it beautiful. But there’s a suspense to it. You don’t see the ugly house and then see it completely renovated; you don’t see the closet full of old frumpy clothes, and then *poof* one full of fashionable designer clothes. You see the process of gutting and purging, and then finally at the end of the show they remind you of what once was, and then amaze you with what now IS!
You need the knowledge of the shag carpet and the neon BUD LIGHT sign to ever appreciate the hardwood floor and the chandelier. We are glorious ruins, and we need the knowledge of our suffering to appreciate the lack thereof in the life to come.
It is GOOD for us to suffer, for we do not suffer because of our faults, but so that we can truly taste how sweet heaven will be. We are being prepared for heaven by having our idols of comfort and wealth destroyed.
…But, if hope isn’t wishful thinking, and God, some genie in a bottle, granting wishes, then what is it?
ii. Hope is KNOWING.
It is not wishing, or thinking, or even, kind of assuming, but not ever being really confident. Hope is KNOWING that heaven is real, and that all who believe in Christ are bound for promised land.
Of course, Hope and Faith go hand in hand. Faith is relying on Christ to forgive our sins. And Hope is knowing that he is able AND willing to do this.
…Imagine, if you will, being a child again. Now, let’s say you innocently, or not so innocently, are looking through your parents closet, or underneath their bed. Who knows what you are looking for, but what you actually find is important. You see, hidden away, that toy that you had been asking for for Christmas. Whether it’s a doll, or a game, or something else, it is exactly what you have always wanted.
Now, Imagine the Joy you would feel, knowing that you got exactly what you wanted. All of your anxiety and fears would disappear! All you had to do was wait…wait until Christmas morning to unwrap that present, that source of delight; and until then you’d rest in joy of knowing exactly what you would receive.
That is hope! That we know exactly what our reward is, and all we have to do is wait. Romans 8:24-25 says this clearly. “24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.”
As I said before, I recently got married (three months ago today). So I remember the engagement process well. We were doing long distance; I was in Connecticut, and she was either in Baton Rouge, LA or Houston, TX. So we didn’t get to see much of one another. So in our separation, we grew to understand what hope actually meant.
Unfortunately, we live in a fallen world, where engagements are broken off, and of course that fear was in our minds at all times; but, we remained optimistic, and therefore remained hopeful. Our hope was that someday we wouldn’t have to say goodbye, that someday we’d be able to be together, and live together. And she can attest to it, we saw that hope come true.
Sin could have destroyed our marriage before it started. And it still can. But where this analogy falls apart , biblical Hope doesn’t. Our sin can separate us from God, but as verse 18 says, Christ suffered ONCE. And in that suffering, he kept a covenant that we can’t break.
This is the HOPE that we should be prepared to tell the unbelieving world. It’s not a complicated thing…Even small children can understand the basic message of the Gospel, and it is this basic message of hope that we should tell those who ask us. That we KNOW heaven is real and it is OURS!
J. R. R. Tolkien uses this simple image of hope in the Lord of the Rings. If you’ve seen the movies, this may be familiar. But, even if you haven’t, the message is clear enough.
Sam, the hobbit, thinks that Gandalf, the wizard, died in battle a long time ago. But when Sam sees Gandalf triumphantly return, ALIVE. Sam is amazed. Having thought Gandalf to be dead, and having endured much pain and danger, he now sees victory!
Sam asks Gandalf, in this epic moment, “Is everything sad going to come untrue?” Is all sadness, and all pain, and all death, and all deception going to cease to exist? And the answer for Sam is the same as the answer for us…
YES! Everything sad IS going to come untrue, because of what Jesus did for us on the cross. and if you know this then you have hope!
…It is such a gift to KNOW that all of this suffering is WORTH it.
Would Jesus have suffered for our sins, if he hadn’t thought it was worth it? Would Noah have built the ark, if he hadn’t known that God would protect Him? Would John have baptized in the wilderness, if he hadn’t known Christ himself was coming? Of Course NOT! They acknowledged the value of their hope by their actions.
Look at Vs. 18, Christ suffered and was put to death, so that we might be brought close to God. Noah built the ark, so that future generations could be receivers of God’s grace. And even John the Baptist baptized as a preparation for the life to come! A baptism of Hope!
Surely when the rain started falling, Noah was reminded of his hope! God won’t let this boat sink; he will bring it through the flood! Though the sinful world dies because of its sin, Noah is allowed to live. And though Noah and his children may suffer, they have SEEN God’s grace first hand. They were saved from drowning as the world drowned, they were baptized and brought safely through the waters.
So what’s our hope?
Christ DROWNED in the flood of God’s wrath, so that we didn’t have to. So that we could be saved, like Noah, brought safely through the flood. That though we die, we are made alive in Christ’s death and resurrection.
One final note, on KNOWING your hope, that I found interesting. The Hebrew word for Hope is directly related to the word “to measure.” Even in the Old Testament there was this idea of hope as knowing the end from the beginning. Just as we measure something to find its length, and thus know the start and the finish, so too do we KNOW what awaits us at the end of this life.
iii. Hope is REST.
And by rest, I don’t mean laziness, or even sleep. What I mean is the putting off of worry and anxiety and the emotions related to our suffering. Rest means acknowledging that you are not the center of the universe, that you are not God, and therefore trusting in Him to be a good God.
…Rest is NOT this ceasing to struggle, but it is a ceasing to think that the suffering of this life could change anything about the next.
Jesus suffered ONCE, for our sins. That means we don’t have to keep attempting to secure our salvation. We don’t have to tread water as the flood rises, because our strength will only last so long. We don’t have to help Jesus help us. We just have to remember our Hope!
The great poet and theologian, Horatius Bonar has this amazing image about what faith truly is, and remember faith and hope are never very far from one another. He says, “Faith is not a climbing of the mountain; but a ceasing to attempt it, and allowing Christ to carry you up in his arms.”
I’d like to add that HOPE is knowing that Christ is strong enough and good enough to take us to the top. Hope is knowing that you will see the top of the mountain, even though you aren’t strong enough to make it yourself.
And this is what Peter is saying Baptism is! Vs. 21, “Baptism, which corresponds to this (the hope of Noah in the ark), now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
The water itself doesn’t save you, what saves you is that where you came through the water safely, Christ did not. We will not be CONSUMED by the flood of God’s wrath, because Christ was consumed. And in this, he defeated death, for our sake.
Vs 18 says he suffered, the righteous for the unrighteous, some translations say the just for the unjust. He was consumed by death for our sake. We traded our sin for His righteousness. He who was without sin became our sin, our guilt, our unrighteousness, so that we may be with Him in heaven.
Know that this is the truth, and rest in it.
…Can’t you see that hope is NOT deceitful, it is GOOD. “Sure,” the world will say, “too good to be true.”
Just because we don’t deserve it, doesn’t mean it’s not true. And once you get over the fact that you don’t deserve grace, and see that God gives it anyway, you’ll see this to be true. Once you get over the fact that you don’t deserve salvation, and see that Jesus DIED so that you could have it, and was RESURRECTED to make you ALIVE, then you will KNOW, and then you will REST.
And that’s what baptism is, it’s a sign of our hope!
…I want to close with a verse from the Hymn, “Jesus, I my Cross Have Taken.” It’s a personal favorite. It was our wedding hymn, and I continually need to be reminded of the truth it speaks.
Man may trouble and distress me,
It will but drive me to Thy breast;
Life with trials hard may press me,
Heaven will bring me sweeter rest.

Faith is letting Jesus carry you up the mountain. Hope is knowing you’ll make it.