Christian Ministries

You Have Reason for Hope

Recently at our Connect Night, I shared on the topic, ‘A Reason for Hope’. This was also the theme of our Christian Union Mustard Day where student groups from other schools came together to spend time and nurture faith.

Here is an extract from the Connect Night.

Attributed to G.K Chesterton is the idea: the result of ceasing to believe in God is not that one will then believe in nothing; it is that one will believe anything.

We don’t want the next generation believing just anything!

So, one of the greatest things you can do to promote hope in your family is to teach and model the Good News of Jesus Christ and to help your children develop a good filter. God has created us with a hunger to know Him. Ecclesiastes 3:11 says:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

If you present the truth of Jesus with grace, people are hungry to hear.

Along with fear, there is great anger and distrust towards just about all institutions in the west, from churches to police, even to some sporting clubs.

So, there is anger and fear, but the Bible reminds us that God has set eternity in the human heart; some writers refer to this as a God-shaped hole. Until we connect with God, we will always be looking for other ways to find peace, joy, fulfilment and our identity.

The word ‘hope’ in the English translation of the Bible appears more than 150 times. In the Old Testament, there are two main words. One is ‘yakhal’, which implies anticipation. For example, Noah had ‘to wait’ (‘yakhal’) for the waters to recede. The other Hebrew word is ‘qavah’, which implies the feeling of tension and expectation while you wait. If hope is about waiting or expectation, what are people waiting for?

In the Psalms, the word for hope appears over 40 times. What is it that people are waiting for? It is God? Biblical hope is based on God; it is different to optimism. Hope in the biblical sense sees beyond circumstances; it sees the bigger picture. Hope is grounded in God’s past faithfulness.

We can look forward with great joy and anticipation by looking back at God’s character, His faithfulness and what He has done. It is a little bit like when you have to ‘re-joice’. Sometimes in life you have experienced great joy, but, over time, broken relationships, trauma or just plain exhaustion can seem to make joy fade. In those times, you need to revisit joy.

It is a bit like that with hope. When you feel overwhelmed by shifting culture:

• don’t forget to look up and turn to God in prayer

• Don’t forget to open your bible and read about God’s providential, all-powerful, merciful faithfulness

• God is not done with this world, God is not done with you and me; there are more chapters to write and great reason for hope.

In the New Testament, the Greek word for hope, ‘elpis’, was used. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection have given us all great reason for hope. The empty tomb, the defeat of death, means that when we turn to Jesus, we can have great hope that death is not the end. 1 Corinthians 15 describes the consequences of Jesus’ empty tomb as a victory:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” 55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ resurrection opened a ‘living hope’; people can be ‘born again’ to eternal life. What happened with Jesus’ resurrection is a foretaste of what we can all experience. We can receive forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternity.

• So, hope is in God.

• Hope is on God. God can set us free from what has a hold on us, just as he has done in the past throughout the Bible.

• Hope is for the salvation made possible by Jesus.

Christian hope is also reasonable. N.T Wright points out that the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the empty tomb demand an explanation from historians and scientists; they can’t simply be dismissed.

• Hope is assured. It is not abstract; Hebrews talks of the certainty of hope.

• Hope is one of the best things for your wellbeing. It will allow you to flourish; it is a compass co-ordinate, like faith, hope and love.

• Hope is described as an ‘anchor for the soul’.

• Hope will require perseverance, but it will lead to great joy. Remember the saying, ‘Joy is not the absence of pain, but the presence of Christ’.

• Hope requires patience but it remains unshaken as faith allows us to grow in our understanding of who God is and His love for this world.

• Lastly, I have mentioned that hope is an anchor, it is also described in Hosea as a door (2:15), a helmet in 1 Thessalonians 5:8 – it will protect you – and we are reminded in Colossians 1:5 that hope is stored up for you in Heaven; it is something inside the believer in 1 Peter 3:15 and it is something into which one is born in 1 Peter 1:3.

We are reminded in 1 Peter 1:3-9:

3 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, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5 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. 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

So, to summarise with some practical application:

Be careful what you take in. Never underestimate the importance of family. Be unified in your voice and keep your focus on Jesus.

May you know the great hope you can have in Jesus, that He is not that far away. As you lean into Him, invite His Holy Spirit in to empower, guide, restore and renew you.

Rev Nick Curtis Director of Christian Ministries